


The Canterbury Tales

by Wind_Ryder



Series: Novel Discussions [3]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Abduction, Anxiety, Babies, Brief mentions of child abuse, Depression, Difficulties eating, Discussion of Abortion, Discussion of off screen non-con, Drama, Dubious Consent, Food Issues, Found Families, Friendship, Hallucinations, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Literature, M/M, Middle English Poetry, Miscarriage, OT4, Pain relieving drug use, Pirates, Poetic Sex, Reunions, Unreliable Narrator, coming together, discussion of child death, relationships, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-10-17 12:33:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 133,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10594113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wind_Ryder/pseuds/Wind_Ryder
Summary: Pirates.  Attacking Georgia.  A part of Thomas wants to believe that there's nothing at all relating the events outside to the events in his personal life.But when he turns around and sees John Silver slipping in through the backdoor, he very much doubts that's the case.  "Tea?" Thomas asks blandly, throwing the latch and shutting his blinds like a good Puritan man.James, of course, chooses that moment to rush up the steps to Thomas's shop.  All but colliding with the door, not expecting it to be locked, and Thomas takes pity.  Opening it and closing it behind him the moment he's rushed in.At first, James' attention was solely on Thomas.  A pleasant thing in most circumstances, but Thomas can only smile blandly and watch with slight amusement as James' attention wavers.  "What the fuck are you doing here?"  He hisses, spotting John within seconds.  And John responds by doing what any sane man should do when the weight of James' full ire is directed at him.He swoons.





	1. The Knight's Tale

The militia has been running back and forth for nearly fifteen minutes by the time Thomas bothers to drag himself from his workbench and peer outside.  Initially he'd thought it merely another one of their endless drills.  Then, he'd suspected perhaps there'd been a conflict with one at the tavern.  The Roland brothers had been arguing about Miss. Lauren Delaney for the past few weeks now, each wanting her hand in marriage.  James and Thomas had been debating when things would turn to fisticuffs and now seemed to be as appropriate a time as any.  But as the shouts and the panic only seemed to grow with each passing minute, Thomas suspected it might be more long lasting than the torrid affairs of Hamish and Lawrence Roland.

Setting down the thoroughly abhorrent copy of the _Illiad_ he'd been asked to mend, Thomas ambles towards the window and peers out.  Frowning as he watches the militia snatch a young slave boy and shove him violently towards the arms of his frightened mother.  "Lieutenant?"  Thomas calls, stepping from his shop.

"Mr. Mcgraw, if you'd return inside, please!" the boyish officer shouted back.  He's got a hint of hysteria in his eyes, and with that hysteria came the first trickle of dread in Thomas' heart.  His fingers tighten around the handle of his door.  Cool brass chilling his skin.  Winter's come early this year, and despite the high noon sun, there's a brisk chill in the air.

"What seems to be the trouble Lieutenant?" he asks instead of retreating.

"Pirates, sir! There were pirates seen off the coast!  Savannah's been sacked and—" an honest to God _explosion_ echoes in the distance.  Far enough away that Thomas doesn't bother ducking or flinching, though the Lieutenant is not nearly as brave.  He whirls about, pale as a lamb's soft downy wool.  "Please, sir! Lock your doors and stay inside!"

Then the officer is off.  Rushing down the road.  And only when he's entirely out of sight, did Thomas carefully shut his door.  Pirates.  Attacking Georgia.  A part of him wants to believe that there's nothing at all relating the events outside to the events in his personal life.

But when he turns around and sees John Silver slipping in through the backdoor, he very much doubts he's ever going to hear _pirates_ _attacking the town,_ and have it _not_ be related to him and James in some way.

"Tea?" Thomas asks blandly, throwing the latch on the door and shutting his blinds like a good Puritan man in fear for his life from the dangerous scallywags marching in from the shoreline.  James, of course, chooses that moment to rush up the steps to Thomas's shop.  He all but collides with the door, not expecting it to be locked, and Thomas takes pity on him.  Opening it and closing it behind him the moment he's rushed in.

At first, James' attention was solely on Thomas.  A pleasant thing in most circumstances, but Thomas can only smile blandly and watch with slight amusement as James' attention wavers.  "Have you heard—what the _fuck_ are you doing here?"  He spots John within seconds of course.  And John responds by doing what any sane man should do when the weight of James' full ire is directed at him.

He swoons.

Collapsing to the ground in a bloodied heap, one hand curling around his stomach while the other does nothing at all to arrest his fall.  He hits the ground before either Thomas or James have the sense to move, and for one awkward moment they just stand there watching him.  Peering down at John's immobile body as if it intends to spring up and offer a more productive explanation.

For some inexplicable reason—it does not.

Rational thought sets in only moments later, and James all but flies to John's side, turning him over and running his hands over the little King's body.  Searching for wounds that are not at all difficult to find.  John's a mess of scrapes and bruises.  Blood soaks through his shirt.  Filth coats his breeches.

He's foregone the crutch for a peg for some reason, easier to climb with Thomas supposes.  James isn't gentle as he strips John from his jacket.  Nor as he examines the bullet hole in John's side.  It's streaking blood across Thomas' floorboards, and Thomas sighs as he makes a note to get some salt to clean it up with.

Stepping forward, he helps James lift John up and carry him into the back room.  Laying him flat and out of sight from the curious guards.  "Do you know what's _actually_ happening?" Thomas asks as he folds John's jacket and sets it beneath his head. John's skin is deathly pale beneath all the grime.  He's been bleeding out for some time, and from the grimace on James' face it's clear he doesn't expect much from their attempts at medical care.

"Two days ago there was an attack on the Savannah Prison Farm," James replied tersely.  "The walls burned to the ground, and dozens of casualties and escaped inmates."  Thomas feels his body turning cold.  He lifts his eyes to meet James' gaze.  Lips pressing into a thin line.  "When the men there didn't find what they were looking for they moved progressively more inland.  And so..." He scowls unhappily at John's body.  Clearly not impressed with what he was seeing.

"He knew we weren't there, though," Thomas muses absently.  The comment was more offhand than he perhaps intended, but it was enough to make James' muscles go rigid and fan the irritation that had been growing within his partner for some time now.

"Did he now, my _dear?"_

"He visited once before.  At the house."  He's not sure what he's expecting James to do.  But the abject devastation that suddenly shrouds his face is not what Thomas wanted.  He reaches out, squeezing James' elbow.  He searches desperately for the right words to say, but James doesn't truly give him a chance.  Instead, he shakes his head.  Pulls free from Thomas' grasp, and redirects his attention to John's bloodied side.  There's a cloth on the shelf to James' left that Thomas has used to wrap his supplies with from time to time.

Thomas suspects that James is a little too glad about taking it and ruining it utterly with the gore leaving John's body.  It's a punishment Thomas is more than happy to take.  He stands up and fetches some water from the bucket he'd collected earlier that day.  Returning with a small bowl as well.  Decent enough for John to sip from once he wakes.

If John hadn't been the one to attack the prison farm, then there were precious few reasons someone would.  Thomas dedicates himself to cleaning blood from John's more minor wounds while James mutters about needing to stitch the bullet would closed.  Through it all, John remains utterly senseless.  A good thing, too, considering that eventually James has run out of reasons to stay silent and sulk and has instead decided to address the issue had on.  "Why didn’t you say anything?"

"About him visiting?" Thomas clarifies blandly.  James scowls.  His mouth does a funny thing when he's upset now.  His left nostril flares a little, the skin above his lip twitches.  It's an expression from a time Thomas doesn't know in full.  Displaying an aggression that James didn't like to show.

Thomas, frankly, doesn't care. "He came specifically while you were out, and our conversation consisted of talk of dinner and the _Epic of Gilgamesh._  He wasn't inclined to stay for dinner, and he left almost as soon as he came.  He clearly didn't _want_ you to know he was there." James' has a habit of mouthing words when he's startled by them.  When he doesn't know what to say and so he just needs to organize them physically before placing them in the correct box for later sorting.

He's on his second recitation of " _The Epic of Gilgamesh?"_ when John stirs beneath his hands.  Immediately he's distracted.  Bending over to watch John blink up at him blearily.  "You're a shit," James tells him firmly, and Thomas feels a bubble of mirth welling within him despite their awkward circumstances.  John is staring up at James like he's an angel sent from above.  Tongue flicking out awkwardly to wet his too dry lips.

The moment is broken the moment James presses down hard on John's side, and Thomas rolls his eyes toward the sky.  No angel behaved as abysmally as this.  If anything, however, John _still_ seems pleased by James' apparently affectionate greeting.  Contented to just lay there, lips twitching upwards in an amused grimace that did nothing for Thomas whatsoever.

"Those your men causing a ruckus outside?" James asks shortly, lifting the cloth up to see if the blood has been staunched sufficiently.  It's still leaking a sludgelike flow that James covers up again.

"Not—hrgh," John's head tilts back and he grits his teeth through the feeling.  Fingers digging into the wooden floor.  His chest heaves in a deep breath, then hisses out slowly.  James offers no apology, Thomas is tempted to give it for him.  But John settles quickly enough.  Breathing out a harsh breath.  "Not...all of them," John grits out.

"Well.  At least it's not _all_ of them."  James is unimpressed, and Thomas doesn't think he's ever seen him like this.  The realization is stunning.  For a moment, Thomas thinks he's actually seeing the man that spent ten years raining hell on the English.  It's the closest to Captain Flint that James has been since he stepped onto that farm all those months ago.  Something harsh and unforgiving in his countenance melded with a dark humor bordering on wry.

And John is smiling now, something small and pathetically blissful considering he's just been shot.  Content to just lay there and let James do whatever he wanted.  James could slit John's throat in this instant and Thomas is quite certain John would simply lie there and say "thank you."

They do need to stitch up John's side.  Thomas has some thread from where he fixes his books, and there's a needle from the last time James' shirt needed a patch.  John doesn't do much more than dig his nails into the floor as James pulls his skin closed.  His eyes squeeze shut and he makes breathy little whimpers from the back of his throat.  Far too silent to be human.  He mewls, rather.  Much like a cat.

Motivated by a fit of tenderness that Thomas generally didn't offer to those outside his immediate sphere, Thomas places his hand over John's right one.  Places his other hand to John's crown.  Those clenched eyes snap open immediately.  John very nearly swallows his tongue as he stares up at Thomas in confusion.  He doesn't understand, and there's a very clear intention to pull away.  He shies closer to James' needle rather than away from it, and Thomas wonders if his touch really burns that much for John to be so willing to pull back.

James is watching without comment.  Attention mostly focused on the neat stitches he's trying to sew into John's skin.  He's nearly finished, and shows no signs of stopping, despite how his patient has all but stopped breathing.  Staring up at Thomas like he means to do him harm.

Thomas feels words pressing against his mouth.   _Don't worry.  It'll be okay.  We'll take care of you._ But there's something very close to terror lurking behind John's eyes now.  Something that he'd not shown at all in the moments before.  Thomas keeps the words to himself.  Burying the sweet nothings behind a gentle stroke of his thumb along the back of John's palm.  Detangling curls with his fingertips as James finally finishes his task.

Outside, Thomas can still hear people running about.  Chaos as people try to decide if they should flee an army of pirates or not.  "There's no reason for pirates to come this far inland," James says lowly.  He stands up, stepping over John's peg as he reaches for a bottle of rum that Thomas keeps just to be polite.  He doesn't even like it. He offers it occasionally to those who stop by from time to time.  He can't even remember where he'd gotten it from.  Just that it appeared one day and—he sighs.  James glances at him, and then back at John, and then scowls at the somewhat sheepish look on John's face.

"How often _do_ you come here, out of _curiosity?"_ The steely edge to James' voice would be mildly humorous if it wasn't being caused by an obstreperous child so insistent on causing himself harm.  John's already sitting up.  Wincing as he slides his palms across the floorboards.  He shuffles himself back so he can lean against a shelf.  One arm sliding about his stomach as he adjusts his legs.

He's pulled himself away from Thomas' touch as subtly as a shadow moving the dark. "Not often," John replies.  Considering the fact Thomas _knows_ John's been to their home, and this store is only a few months old, but that bottle's been here for a few weeks...Thomas doubts their versions of 'often' much align.

 _"Why?"_ And it's asked with such incomprehension that Thomas half wonders if James really had lost his brain while he masqueraded as a feared Pirate Lord.

"Because he thinks you hate him, and he doesn't want to hear you tell him so to his face," Thomas explains gently.  John looks vaguely betrayed by Thomas's response, though that's overshadowed by how he adjusts his position.  Fingers falling to the hilt of a dagger.  And, _really?_ "He just patched you up, do you truly imagine he will put _more_ holes in you?" Thomas asks wearily.  Judging by the look on John's face, that's exactly what he's imagining.

Shaking his head, Thomas stands.  His shoulder knocks against one of the books he recently finished binding for Mrs.  Merryweather down the street.  She's due to collect it in a few days, once she returns from a trip to see her granddaughter.  It's a quaint little classic, one Miranda had enjoyed in their youth.

Plucking it from the shelf, Thomas hands it to John.  Holding it out for ages before John slowly reached for it and retrieved it from his grasp.  "Please, enjoy that while you rest.  I look forward to discussing the finer points later."

Then, he catches James by his collar and drags him from the storage closet.  Fully intending to furrow out his partner's feelings on this before they proceed any further.

“What?” James asks, blinking at him dully.

“You will not be angry at that boy,” Thomas informs him briskly.  James is doing it again.  Mouthing words as his mind struggles to catch up.  He keeps trying to form the word ‘boy’ but his mind can’t seem to provide a thought to move past it.  It’d be adorable if Thomas weren’t so determined to drive his point home.  “He’s our guest, and you will—”

James kisses him.  It’s an unfair tactic that Thomas truly wishes he wasn’t susceptible to.  But by virtue of _being_ susceptible to it he’s able to receive more kisses, and so he’s not _truly_ disappointed by it.  “I’m not angry at Silver,” James informs when he pulls away.  Thomas blinks.  

“All right…” It’s been a long time since they’ve not been able to know each other’s minds at a glance.  But the man before Thomas now holds layers that Thomas cannot hope to understand just yet, and Thomas knows that he is also much changed from the past decade.  They pass each other occasionally, two ships in the night.  Drifting by without ever knowing the other’s course or bearing.  

By all accounts, James had seemed furious.  And yet here...he stands before Thomas calm and without any sign of tension.  His hands are red from Silver’s blood, and his shirt is rumpled.  And yet, he looks as calm and serene as if he’d just come back from the garden.  “I’m not,” James assures.  

Something shifts in the other room, and their conversation comes to an abrupt halt.  Both returning to their guest who had clearly not been reading as he’d been instructed.  Instead, he’d attempted to stand.  Succeeding in dragging himself to the first shelf of the closet and not much else.  He looks up at them as they stand in the doorway.  Sweaty face flushed red from exertion.

The sound of the militia’s whistles keep going off outside, and there’s no chance they’ll be able to spirit John back to their house without being seen.  “I have a bench in my office,” Thomas informs John briskly.  “James if you—” he’s already moving.

Bending down to hoist John the rest of his way to his feet.  Ignoring how John gasps in pain.  Blood pools along the bandage they’d tied about his stitches.  The skin pulling roughly.  It’ll do them no good if the stitches break, but James seems disinclined to offer John even the slightest measure of comfort since John seems perfectly inclined to get himself into trouble.   

They manage to situate him in the office, however.  Thomas pulls the blinds and organizes a few things so should the militia insist on examining the premises John will remain mostly hidden.  It takes more time than he’d like, but he manages it even as James hunches over John’s body and murmurs something to him.

“I’m going to offer my help outside,” James informs Thomas once he’s done.  As far as plans are concerned, it’s not bad.  James can casually redirect attention from the shop and they won’t need to worry about anything so long as they stay back here.  

Still, Thomas cannot help a slight thrill of uncertainty from climbing up his spine.  He doesn’t want him to leave.  And, from how John’s hand reaches out to grab onto James’ sleeve.  Neither does he.  “The...point...was to...not have you seen…” John manages weakly.  

“Beg pardon?” James asks, serene in a way that’s damn near terrifying.  John isn’t in the mood for games, but neither are they.  When he huffs and makes a face, James just makes a move toward the door, forcing John to redouble his efforts.

“Madi,” he manages to grit out through his teeth.  “She’s the one...she’s looking for you.”

The name is familiar.  It takes Thomas a moment to place it.  “Madi,” James murmurs, emotions filling his voice.  

“Your wife?” Thomas tries, looking between them in hopes he’d guessed right.  They both nod, and Thomas refrains from teasing James about it.  Now’s not the time.  He’s hardly in the mood to be receptive.  “Why didn’t you bring her yourself?  Save yourself the trouble?”

This time, however, John doesn’t reply.  Just stares at James, and remains still as James stares back.  Where Thomas finds reading the depths of James thoughts to be difficult after their separation, it’s suddenly clear that James has no such difficulties where John is concerned.  James raises a hand and presses it to his face.  Sighing heavily as exhaustion starts setting in.

His posture’s been shifting subtly since John first appeared.  And now it’s mere inches from the broad shouldered stance of a pirate Captain they’d both tried to lay to bed.  John’s face is ashen by now.  His earlier efforts leaving him weak and trembling.  The blood is seeping from his cheeks and likely filling his bandage even now.  

Thomas waits for an explanation, but he isn’t given one.  Instead, James leaves to collect the book that John had been instructed to read.  He passes it back to Thomas upon his return, and locks the office door.  Barricading it and going to reinforce the windows.  

Taking that as the only cue he’d likely receive, Thomas sighs and fetches a candle from his desk drawer.  He lights it and sets it on the floor by the bench.  Sitting down carefully, Thomas props the book on his knee, and leans back.  His head shoulders resting against John’s arm as John remains sprawled.  He can feel John shifting, trying to offer him room, but there’s nowhere for John to go.  Eventually he lays still, and Thomas feels the warmth of John’s body sinking into his skin.

“Have you ever read this?”  Thomas asks.  It’s as good a question as any, even if John’s likely to be offended by the question once more.  John doesn’t even bother answering this time.  Just curling slightly.  Leaning unconsciously against Thomas as he tries to huddle about his injury.  

James comes and sits at Thomas’ side and they’re all huddled together in the dark.  Waiting for the militia to call the all clear.  For the pirates to leave.  For them to worry about how to get John out of here, back to his people, and off to face the wrath of his wife once more.  

 

> “Whilom, as olde stories tellen us,  
>  Ther was a duc that highte Theseus;  
>  Of Atthenes he was lord and governour,  
>  And in his tyme swich a conquerour,  
>  The gretter was ther noon under the sonne.  
>  Ful many a riche contree hadde he wonne,  
>  What with his wysdom and his chivalrie;  
>  He conquered al the regne of Feemenye,  
>  That whilom was ycleped Scithia,  
>  And weddede the queene Ypolita,  
>  And broughte hir hoom with hym in his contree,  
>  With muchel glorie and greet solemppnytee.”

 

“I don’t suppose you know how to read that so us poor uneducated swines can understand?” John murmurs drowsily.  Thomas huffs.  Retracing his place to the beginning and preparing to begin again, pausing only when James lifts an arm up and over Thomas’s head and swatting sharply against John’s arm.  It's a light tap, barely enough to sting, but John still yelps like he’d been burned.  Grumbling like a child after a spanking and shifting about some more on the bench.  

“Ignore him,” James tells Thomas sweetly, letting his arm curl around Thomas’s shoulders.  They’re all shifting now, trying to get comfortable as they settle in for the long haul.  From somewhere, Thomas can _just_ make out the feel of John’s arm slowly shifting.  He can imagine John’s fingers lying limp on the other side of James’.  With nothing to hold onto except himself.  With no one to cling to for comfort.  

And then, just as Thomas prepared to offer a change, he catches movement.  Turns his head ever so slightly, and watches as dirty fingers squeeze slightly along James’ sleeve.  James is watching Silver over Thomas’ head, and something must pass between them, because James’ smile is calm.

Pleasant.  

He kisses Thomas’ head, and tells him to continue.

He does so, slower this time.  Translating it as best he can, and relishing in the happy sound of contentment John makes as they all sink into the tale.  

“Once, as old stories tell us, there was a duke that hated Theseus of Athens.  He was lord and governour, and in his time was such a conqueror. Indeed, there was none greater under the sun.  Full, and many, rich countries he had won with his wisdom and chivalry.  He even conquered all the reign of the Amazons that once was called Scithia.  And he wedded their queen Ypolita, bringing her home with him to his own country with much glory and great ceremony.”

Thomas reads on and on.  Turning the pages of his book and curling closer and closer to James.  John’s hand slides the longer Thomas read.  Knuckles brushing the back of Thomas’ hair as their bodies relaxed.  The sounds of the militia fade. Their stomachs gurgle for want of food.

John falls asleep well before the first tale finishes.  His quiet breathing providing a soothing metronome to Thomas’ words.  It measures his cadence, and he continues on uninterrupted.  Relishing in the feeling of James pressed close.  His hand idly stroking Thomas’ knee as he reads, filling him with unending peace that he never wishes to let go of.

Thomas turns the pages, and for tonight, the backroom of his office feels like home.

  
  



	2. The Physician's Tale

Where James had been enchanted with Marcus Aurelius, John seemed equally as charmed by  _ The Canterbury Tales.   _ James isn't entirely sure when the pattern developed.  Sometime after he read John  _ The Knight's Tale,  _ but before they reached  _ The Wife of Bath _ .  John's bizarre habit of appearing and disappearing before anyone knew what to do with him made it nearly impossible to assign any predictability to it.

Thomas tries not to think of it in all seriousness.  He dedicates himself to his practice and his books, and he ignores the feeling of being watched.  Ignores the brief moments where he'll see a Pirate King just out the corner of his eye.  If Thomas is quick enough, he's able to motion for John to join him, but more often than not John's gone before he has the chance.  Usually leaving books or trinkets as offerings or apologies.  Thomas still isn't sure which one.

This time, however, he reports his findings to James.  He delivers the gifts when he receives them, and James sighs at each cover.  Shakes his head at the baubles.  Laughs at a boatswain's whistle.  Turning melancholy as the gifts keep on.

Sometimes Thomas thinks that John visits in order to try out different versions of himself.  The friend who comes with gifts.  The companion who discusses literature.  The acquaintance who prattles about the weather.  As though he's shedding his skin time and again, but isn't sure whether his new layer fits the best.  Whether it is who he is, or just another mask he's attempting to call his own. 

"You really should  _ stay _ a little _ ,  _ you know," Thomas informs John the next time he manages to catch him.  He's uninjured today.  Hair pulled out of his face and pegged leg the only sign of difficulty.  Thomas has seen him with the crutch.  John moves better with it.  Seems to be in less pain with it too, and yet he persists with the boot for reasons Thomas has yet to understand.

It's not pride. 

But Thomas has yet to put his finger on what, exactly, it  _ is. _

His friend, because at this point Thomas feels comfortable calling the younger man that, just smiles serenely at him.  "What would my wife say to a thing like that?" he asks.  Teasing in a way that Thomas is meant to ignore, but frankly doesn't care to.

"What would she say?" It's the kind of targeted question John prefers not to answer.  Predictably, he doesn't.  He redirects the conversation towards the latest edition of  _ The Canterbury Tales _ that he just  _ happened _ to come across during his travels. 

This copy has pictures etched into the margins.  Beautiful little designs that arc around the words and melt into full page imprints.  John keeps flipping through the pages of the book, and he comes to a stop when he gets to the  _ Physician's Tale.   _ It's not one of Thomas' favorites.  In fact, when they'd been reading the book a few weeks ago, Thomas had skipped it altogether.  Though clearly, John has had time to read it on his own. 

The drawing on this page is morbid.  A man, Virginus, embracing his daughter, Virginia, in the moments before he murders her.  John keeps stroking the page though, inspecting the image as Thomas sets about to his work fixing another book for another customer.

Closing his own book, John ambles closer to Thomas.  Leaning over to watch Thomas.  "Who's this one for?" John asks, picking up one of Thomas' tools and twirling it between his fingers.  His dexterity has always been impressive.  Thomas doesn't doubt that John's sleight of hand extends to far more than simply making hammers dance over his knuckles however. 

"Mr. Clarence Rogers, he's a solicitor that recently moved to Savannah.  His belongings became rather water logged on the journey to the Americas and—" John's making a face.  Scowling and putting the hammer down.  "You don't care much for lawyers, do you?"

"They've never done anything for me."  John shrugs, "Why should I care much for them?"

"Ideally they help keep law and order.  I can see why that would be troublesome for your profession," Thomas adds with a smile, "but they're not all inherently evil."

John isn't mollified however.  He hitches himself up so he's leaning more thoroughly against Thomas' desk, and rubs one hand along his thigh.  "They're all inherently corrupt."

"How so?"

"They're paid to help someone, aren't they?  By their nature that's corruption."

"One cannot exist on goodwill alone."

"Tell that to the clergy."  It's an argument that will likely lead them to the path of ruin, and Thomas cannot bring himself to continue down it since he knows he's bound to lose.  He's spent far too many years listening to clergymen preach at him for the wickedness of something so simple as the love for another human being.  He has no interests in calling that or anything goodwill.  Seeing the opening that Thomas has so easily created, John grins savagely.  "And who better to take advantage than those who are in control of those fields?  The lawyer who knows the judge, the clergy who knows the way to heaven?  Give them what you want and you shall have peace, but refuse...and you will know suffering beyond imagination."

He motions towards their book, and Thomas sits back in his chair.  Letting Mr. Roger's text rest for a moment as John continues driving his point home.  "In  _ The Physician's Tale,  _ a judge decided he wanted Virginia.  Wanted her more than anything else, and to get her, all he had to do was make a claim that she was a runaway slave and thus a ward of his court.  He threatened to take her from her father, and her father responded by murdering his own daughter.  All to save her, or rather  _ himself, _ from shame."

Thomas feels any trace of humor he had remaining snap out of him in an instant.  He'd misjudged.  John's mood had been shifting about because he was upset.  And he's lashing out now for the same reason.  There's a clock in Thomas' office, and he glances at it.  Jaw clenching.  James won't be back for another few hours.  John, of course, will have left before then. 

If John wants to have this discussion without James, then Thomas is more than willing to indulge, but the pretence is going to fade.  It's going to stop.  "Shame is a powerful motivator," Thomas begins.  John's fingers twitch.  A commander preparing his men for battle.  Organizing soldiers in their firing lines.  Ready, aim, fire—

"I suppose in the end parents are much like lawyers and clergy in that way.  Looking out for their own interests as opposed to yours.  Even when you ask them for help."

"If you're looking for a defense on good parenting, John, you've come to the wrong person.  James killed my parents, and I've not regretted that once."

"Why would I look to you for something like that?" Frankly, Thomas doesn't know why they're having this conversation at all.  "I just wonder why you can sit there and make a book for the very lawyers who would see you back in the same position your father put you in."

It's a slap to the face more than anything else.  "Because the actions of one bad man do not dictate the fate or behaviors of another.  People should be judged by the crimes they commit, not the ones that others commit around them."

"And yet Virginius was never punished for killing his daughter.  He murdered her.  She'd done nothing wrong.  Simply been a woman a judge took a fancy to.  And when Virginius murdered his daughter and the judge threatened to punish him for it, the people punished the judge instead.  Throwing  _ him  _ in jail to die, rather than Virginius."

"What does this have to do with whether I should fix this book for Mr. Rogers?"

"We've already established that solicitors and members of the bench are corrupt, that they receive less punishment than they deserve, that they are not offered the same consequences as others.  And we know that in the end, even wicked people receive praise from those who don't deserve it.  I just wonder why you would rather help a man who’s likely to harm someone else for something they didn't deserve, in any way whatsoever."

"Because Mr. Rogers isn't a character in a book, John.  He's a good man, who maybe has done wrong in his life, but who has never done  _ me _ wrong.   _ And... _ he's a paying customer."

"So the sins of the past are forgiven for coin, and you are just as corrupt as they."  Thomas meets John's eyes.  Trying, for a moment to discern where any of this is coming from.  Something's happened, Thomas is certain.  Though he cannot put his finger on  _ what.  _

Before he can ask, though, the door to the shop has opened, and Thomas sits up from his desk to greet his patron.  It's not a rare occurrence, having guests.  But John dislikes them all the same.  He responds each time with a mix of sulking and belligerence.  As though someone's inconvenienced  _ him  _ and not the other way around.

Spoilt is not a word Thomas uses lightly, but he rather thinks he indulges John too much.  And as fond as he's grown of the man, he cannot help how dangerous this all has started to feel.  Stepping out into the main floor of his store, Thomas stops short.  There's a man there.  Tall.  Broad shouldered.  Flaming red hair and beard.  Scar by his eye that could only have come from a shot fired at close range.  Skipping off skin and tearing muscle and sinew with it.  Thomas has seen him before.  In passing.  In the dark of a night when he’d come to fetch John.  When he’d delivered James to the Farm.

Now, just like then, Israel Hands’ clothes are disreputable, and his demeanor is violent.  "Where's Silver?" Hands growls, breath heavy with the scent of liquor.  

Thomas has been accused of being many things.  Fragrantly stupid isn’t one of them.  Though, at the moment, he’s more than willing to throw in with that lot.  Irritation is spiraling within him, and he lets loose his tongue before he considers stopping it.  "Unfortunately, this is a bookshop, I don't have any silver here." Thomas hears John's peg clunk against the floor.  Listens as John draws closer.   There an urgency to his step, and before Hands can get another word out: John's there. 

"Israel."  His voice is lower than anything Thomas has heard before.  Eyes narrowed sharply.  All at once the room feels as frigid as winter's day. John had practically growled the name out, churning it through one of the pits of hell before speaking it into the world.  A shiver of anxiety sparks through Thomas, and he looks between the two men uncomprehendingly.  "You have no business here."

"You're my business here."  Israel's face is a dark purplish red.  His meaty hands visibly sweaty even from several paces away. 

There was a man on the Farm that Thomas once knew.  An elderly fellow named Shep, who'd been there since the farm's inception. He'd had a vice for drinking, and he was mean about it too.  No one knew how he found his way to the bottle week after week, but Thomas half suspected some of the guards enjoyed watching him make a fool of himself.

Mr. Oglethorpe had threatened to flog any man caught distributing liquor to the inmates, but it hadn't stopped the practice.  Thomas had watched with a mix of fascination and horror as Shep became obstinately drunk and brutally violent as his vice took hold.

At the time, Thomas supposed he might have been ever so slightly suicidal in his management of Shep.  He certainly didn't care if he were at the receiving end of a beating, and he'd  _ been  _ at the receiving end of a beating more than once.  More than two dozen times.  When Shep fell into the bottle, his face twisted into a sneer that resembled Alfred Hamilton's, and Thomas couldn't help himself. 

When faced with a facsimile of a demon, he'd  _ thoroughly  _ enjoyed prodding it.  Every man had their vice, and inciting rage in others is one of Thomas' most enticing.  "Frankly, nobody is  _ anybody's  _ business here save mine," Thomas announces, standing firmly between John and  _ Israel.   _ "And I don't suspect you're here for a book."

Israel's eyes squint.  He's flabbergasted.  His tongue licks his lips and he pokes a thick finger toward Thomas' chest.  "The fuck did you just say to me?"

"Touch him and I'll kill you myself," John growls from behind Thomas's shoulder.  Each syllable sending shivers down Thomas's spine.  He misses the game of make believe they'd been playing for months.  John playing at being innocent and Thomas pretending he didn't know who he  _ really  _ was. 

Calling John a 'Pirate King' in his own mind had been as much of a distancing tactic as a way to amuse himself.  John's a full head shorter than Thomas and even without the crutch he looks entirely unassuming.  It's not that Thomas never believed James, it's more that he didn't care to.  And right now, he doesn't care for this. 

John's meant to be pretending he's an innocent visitor igniting arguments about the good morality of legislators and solicitors, not threatening death in Thomas' show room. 

Dislike rears its ugly head.  Digging its claws into Thomas' good reason and spurring him forward.  Israel matches John's growl with low rumbling, "That a fact?"

And Thomas responds by chastising them both.  "There will be no  _ killing  _ in my place of business.  Whatever it is you mean to say or do, I'd thank you to leave and manage it another time.  You are no longer welcome here, sir." It's the words of a dotty old fool who thinks logic and reason will mean anything to a violent drunk.  Where hubris masks the ineffectual nature one truly maintains.

Israel responds by grabbing Thomas by the throat.

Thomas responds by grabbing Israel by the balls, and clenching his fist.  Twisting his wrist even as he introduces his other fist to the bridge of Israel's nose.  The big man falls to the ground with a startled wheeze, and Thomas only regrets the fact that he does actually think he felt something pop.

He  _ doesn't _ regret it all that much.

From behind him, John's shifted his stance.  He'd obviously intended to get involved when Israel had made to attack, but now he's frozen in place.  Blue eyes wide, mouth forming a perfect 'o'. He stares at Thomas, and Thomas stares at him, and with nothing better to say, Thomas merely shrugs his shoulders.  Quoting,  _ "Forsake sin or for sin you'll be forsaken," _ as he reaches for a broom and brings it down hard on Israel's head.  Knocking the man out and not feeling the least bit sorry for that either.

***

 

James finds them later, John still there and Israel tied up in the back closet.  John’s made them tea, cleaned up the blood that Israel stained Thomas’ floor with, and has been sitting across from Thomas listening to him read with the most dumbfounded look on his face.  Thomas is still congratulating himself that he’s managed to coax John into staying long enough for James to see him again.  The fact that Israel is bound, gagged, and thoroughly miserable only amplifies his pleasure. 

“Your partner’s terrifying,” John informs James.  He’s been saying as much to Thomas’ face for the past half hour.  As if he can’t quite wrap his head around it.  

“Of course he is,” James replies.  “Did you ever have a doubt?” 

“Honestly,” John sighs, “I have no idea why I expected anything less.  I’ve under-estimated you, Mr. Hamilton.” 

“McGraw,” Thomas corrects absently.  “I’d be very happy to never hear that name again.” John doesn’t even question it.  Just nods his head.  Says Thomas’ new name with perfect solemnity, and sips his tea. 

Seeing as how this is hardly the first, nor likely the last, time James has come in while there’s chaos afoot and John about, Thomas thinks his lover’s managing the situation rather well.  He only sneers towards the closet and shuts the door on Israel, making it effortlessly clear his opinions on the man.  “Why do you even bother with him?”  James asks, pressing a palm to John’s shoulder as he leans over to kiss Thomas ‘hello.’ 

The first time James had kissed him in front of John, Thomas had wondered how John would react.  His utter lack of response as much of a tell as anything else.  John couldn’t seem to care less, and the acceptance never fails to thrill Thomas.  To marvel on life’s pleasant uncertainties as well as its great delights. 

Stripping from his jacket and sitting down, James unlatches the wraps around his boots and tugs them off.  He has a hole at the big toe of his right sock, and Thomas scowls at it.  Pulling open a drawer to find his needle and thread.  “He’s fine,” John murmurs even as Thomas is tossing James tools to darn his sock with.  “You two are utterly domesticated.” 

“Do I comment on your retirement?” James asks, squinting at his boots and upending them.  He spills a few pebbles onto Thomas’ floor, and Thomas makes a note to tend to it later.  John doesn’t say anything for a moment, and it gives time for James to look up.  Directing his far too perceptive squint at John instead.  “Or lack thereof, rather?” 

“Not all of us can be with the loves of our lives in perfect marital bliss,” John replies.  Finishing his tea, he sets the cup down beside the rest of Thomas’ tools.  Nodding to them both before slipping into the closet to deal with his gagged watchdog.  

The light’s starting to fade out of the day and Thomas still has a great deal of work left to do on Mr. Rogers’ book.  He hasn’t been nearly as productive today as he would have liked.  John’s visits always put him behind, and while he generally isn’t bothered, today he can feel agitation filling in the cracks of his generally sturdy complacency.  “Are you all right?” James doesn’t  _ need  _ to ask that question, but he does so anyway.  It’s nice, at the very least, to be cared for. 

Thomas smiles at his partner and nods his head.  Pushing Rogers’ book to the side. He’ll just work on it tomorrow.  He can spend the next four hours failing at managing a stitch, or he can finish things tomorrow when he can think straight and not feel like his mind is splitting in two.  “Come along,” he decides.  “You can finish that at home.”

“I can, can I?” James asks, already sliding his barefoot back into his boot.  He’s stuffing his socks back into his pocket when the closet door opens and John emerges, Israel behind him.  “Casting off as well?” 

The icy timber that had struck the room earlier is back.  John’s posture relaxed, but his presence lethal.  “Yes,” he says.  “I won’t be back for some time.” It’s the way he says it, the way that he leaves things, that has something uncomfortable shifting within Thomas’ chest.  

“You know you’re welcome anytime?” James asks.  Had it been any other moment, Thomas would have thought the question would have made John smile.  As it is, he doesn’t react positively at all.  His lips are halfway towards a sneer that feels wrong and off, and Thomas is caught staring at his face looking for answers and finding nothing he wants to see. 

There’s a distinct puffiness near John’s left eye.  A bruise is coming in, and it’s left red flesh spanning across his cheek.  A sudden well of  _ fury  _ rises in Thomas’ chest as he realizes Israel had struck John.  Hard too, if his face is already showing signs of the trauma.  He’s lucky he didn’t split his lip with a strike like that, though Israel must have been careful.  Purposeful.  “You fucking—” James jerks him back before he can say or do another thing.  

“Get out Hands,” James hisses, and the other man doesn’t hesitate before disappearing.  Front door of the shop closing behind him with a delicate click.  

“He struck you,” Thomas accuses the moment he’s gone, and still the ice hasn’t abated.  John is looking at Thomas as though _Thomas_ is the one who’s done something worthy of being ridiculed.  “Is he why you’re leaving?”

“There’s something I need to do,” John replies.  “And it’s, quite frankly, neither of your businesses.  And seeing as how you’ve made it clear whose business  _ does  _ belong here, I think it’s best if I take my leave before there any further misunderstandings.” 

_ Misunderstandings.   _

“He has no right to touch you—”

“—As touching as your concern is, Mr. McGraw, I’m hardly an abused wife incapable of defending myself.  And you are neither my protector nor my confidante.  I don’t need your assistance, and I don’t need this.”  Something’s changed.  Something that Thomas cannot place and cannot understand.  It’s infuriating. 

Infuriating and  _ burning  _ in its displacement.  Thomas wants to tear the world apart.  Wants to reach across the room and shake John until he gives the appropriate answers to the questions that are mounting in Thomas’ head.  He wants an end to this madness and—

“—Be safe,” James concludes.  Squeezing Thomas’ arm hard enough the bruise.  “Come back when you’re able.” 

“I may not come back at all.” It’s said with a jaunty smile.  Thomas hates him for it.  

And he’s gone before Thomas even know what’s happened. 

“Leave it alone, Thomas,” James tells him.  

It’s laughable to think he will, but no matter how much Thomas attempts to argue with the man, James doesn’t answer his questions for the rest of the night.  He doesn’t say a single word on the matter.  Letting John leave and walk away with no signs of coming back.  “This is why he thinks you hate him,” Thomas informs his lover just before they fall asleep for the night. 

James, rather predictably, doesn’t say a thing. 


	3. The Wife of Bath's Tale

John doesn’t return to the store.  He doesn’t return to the house.  He’s gone like dust in the wind, and Thomas notices his absence far more than he has any right to.  What’s worse, is that James is obviously upset with how things ended as well.  Guilt came quickly the next morning when Thomas woke to find James gone from his bed.  His partner had been standing by the fire in the pre-morning light, hands stroking John’s borrowed copy of _The Canterbury Tales_ in contemplative silence.  “I’m sorry,” Thomas had offered softly.  “I hadn’t meant to wound.”

“You did,” James had corrected.  “It’s forgiven either way.”

But the book lay there in the open for days after the fact.  Weeks even.  Months.  Seasons were changing, and true to his word: John did not return.  Thomas’ book repairs had begun to attract attention, and he’d even been able to start selling more and more books on consignment.  He was creating a quite pleasant income now, and the store was flourishing.

During the days, James still worked in the fields.  Seemingly relishing the thought that he was able to stand on the ground.  That the earth wasn’t moving beneath his feet.  That everything would remain exactly as it was the day before.  And yet.

John didn’t return.

No letters came.  No gifts arrived.  No stray bottles of rum appeared on Thomas’ desk. Thomas has spied James fingering the boatswain whistle he now wears around his neck like a crucifix.  Neither talked about it, but John’s absence had made things hurt in a way that neither was comfortable with.

Winter starts to slip into spring, and James meets Thomas at his store at closing.  Offering to walk back to the house together.  Helping him carry his bag and asking him about his day.  They stop by the butcher to pick up some meet for the evening, and Thomas goes to the boulangerie while James discusses the price of the pork.  

And as they make their way home, the things they don’t talk about seem to carry more weight than the what they _do._ They don’t talk about John.  They don’t talk about how they left things then.  They don’t talk about the gritty feeling of sand that’s left a coating over the bliss they’ve carved out for themselves.  Soft and smooth on occasion, but rough and abrasive on others.  

They’re only a short distance away from their house when James pauses in the path.  Thomas stumbles to a stop nearly a foot after him, and looks between James and whatever it is his eyes is tracking.

Smoke.  

There’s smoke rising from the chimney of their home.  Neither had started a fire before they left for the day, which means…

Grinning brightly, Thomas all but races James to the door.  Hurrying to push it open.  He’d planned to start with a quote, something he suspects John would smile at if nothing else.  But the words fall dead on his lips.

It’s not John sitting by the fire.  Instead, standing before him, is a young woman.

She’s flanked by two men, one of whom Thomas does not recognize.  The other, “You’re not welcome in my home,” Thomas spits out before he can think better of it.  Israel Hands glares back at him, and Thomas feels his heart start pounding in his chest.  

James is skidding to a stop behind him, and his hand touches Thomas’ shoulder.  “Madi,” James greets.  His fingers squeeze down where they rest.  Rooting Thomas to the floor.  Telling him to wait.  Be patient.  

And as James slides around Thomas to embrace John’s wife, Thomas tries to focus on the good things that are happening.  Rather than instead focusing on all the many reasons this could be bad.  

Madi is beautiful.  Dressed in a peach pink blouse and a long coat that covers her shoulders and reaches down to her knees.  Her hair is pulled back in tight locks, and she stands with all the regal authority that John lacked.  Where John’s a king in name, Madi seems to exemplify what it means to be a monarch.  She is poised, graceful, and particular in her movements.

And while there could very well be a sense of coldness to her actions, her joy at seeing James is undeniable.  Tears prick her eyes and she smiles warmly.  Meeting him halfway and wrapping her arms around James’ neck.  Allowing him to pull her to his chest and cradle her as familiarly as any man to their own wife.

He kisses her cheek in a move that sets Thomas’ mind whirling, and when James steps back, Madi’s smile is still just as bright as it had been before they’d released.  She’s happy to see him.  Happy in a way that Thomas had been curious on, considering John’s insistence that she and James never reunite.

“You must be Thomas,” Madi says once she’s finished greeting James with all the love and devotion of a truly long lost friend.  She approaches with a pious walk that Thomas recognizes from the courts of London.  It’s disconcerting to see it here, and to see it performed so effortlessly.  He takes her offered hand and kisses it politely.  Bending to meet her knuckles as he hasn’t done in nearly thirteen years.

“Ma’am,” he greets, old habits sparking deep within him.  She smiles at him, lips quirking upward, bright and wicked.  Her eyes are glittering as though he’s told a particularly humorous joke, but she’s too polite to laugh.  He cannot imagine what his father would say if he saw them now, and if the mere thought of Thomas kissing the Queen of the Maroons’ hand at the side of his male lover will make Alfred turn in his grave: Thomas will damn well kiss her again.

Hands is still loitering far too close by for Thomas’ liking, glowering at Thomas like he’d personally offended him.  Thomas almost inquires as to the state of the man’s balls, but finds that even _he_ has qualms about asking about a man’s genitals in the presence of a woman not intimately familiar with them already.  He would not presume such a thing of Madi, of course. It’s unseemly.

To her credit, however, she seems fully aware of the tension between them.  She simply needs to glance at her other companion and then at Hands before they both grunt something about waiting elsewhere for her to finish.  They leave swiftly and silently, and Thomas spares only half a second of consideration for the neighbors before he puts that from his mind as well.

He never cared what the neighbors thought of him in the past, and any care he feels now comes only from the experience telling him how dangerous certain actions could be.  Unlike before, however, _now_ he’s more than willing to fight them tooth and nail.  Betray him once shame on them….do it again, and he’ll kill them on sight.

Forgiveness, he finds, is not something he’s as keen to deliver these days.

Once they were alone, James offers Madi a seat at their table.  He starts a pot of water for tea and Thomas busies himself with slicing the bread he’d purchased.  “What are you doing here, Madi?” James asks quietly.

It’s different, Thomas thinks, than when he’d questioned why John _hadn’t_ said anything previously.  Before, James had wanted to know why John had been avoiding him, but the idea that John had come in the first place didn’t seem all that surprising.  Here though, now, there’s a difference.  

Any pretenses or polite conversation they might have had disappears in an instant.  Madi draws in a deep breath and releases it.  She tilts her chin upwards.  Fearless in the face of her current conflict.  “John’s been missing for six months.”

“Missing?” James repeats quietly.  Back to them as he addresses his pot of water.

“ _Six_ months?” Thomas clarifies.  “It’s been nine since--”

“--Since Mr. Hands requested he return home,” Madi finishes.  She’s got a shrewd eye.  Sharp and examining.  She looks at Thomas as if she can pull her answers from his mind before he gives them.  “I know.”

“He’s not here,” James tells her.

“I know that too.”

Finally, James turns.  The moments when Captain Flint slips out from behind the cage James locks him in are few and far between.  In a way, Thomas is grateful for it.  The fantasy that they can be happy together without paying too much mind to the horrors of their past is a nice one.  Thomas isn’t frightened of the Captain’s persona.  He isn’t bothered by it.  He doesn’t shy away or shirk from it.  

But whenever James starts slipping down that path, it’s sparks a feeling of such uncomparable sadness in Thomas he physically feels his heart burn.  James is like this because he _had_ to be like this, and Thomas knows full well how much James had hated each and every moment he’d _been_ like this.  What the Captain made him feel.  Made him want.

Made him enjoy.

Thomas isn’t naive enough to think James didn’t like aspects of the freedom of being Captain Flint.  Any fool could see the allure.  But it’s antithetical to the man James wants to be, and seeing the Captain emerge here, in their home, only speaks to the severity of the situation.   And, to the extents John had gone through to ensure this moment never came to pass.

He’d stalled Madi that day, all those months ago.  Kept her from finding James and Thomas.  And he’d done it, perhaps, for this reason.  To keep the steely- _flint_ from James’ eyes.  To keep them living the fantasy just a little longer.

“Where is he?” James asks coldly.  Madi isn’t surprised, nor seem to notice the shift that makes Thomas stare.  He will not avert his eyes.  Will not avoid this.  James and Captain Flint are both _his_ , and he’ll hold onto them with all he has.  He will not allow James to be ashamed of the actions he’s had to do.  The actions he _will_ do.  Thomas loves him, and that includes every tortured and violent part.

Reaching into a pocket on the inside of her coat, she removes a fold of paper.  There’s a seal on it, but it’s broken by now.  She gives it to James, and he thumbs the document open.  Tilting it so Thomas can read over his shoulder.  

It’s not very long, but there’s an implicit threat clear within the first few sentences.  James growls under his breath.  Nostrils flaring as his fingers tighten around the fragile page.  “Who’s Billy Bones?” Thomas asks when he reaches the end of the letter.  The name is familiar.  Very much so, but it’s not registering in the way that Thomas knows it should.  Either by James’ careful design when telling him stories of the past, or Thomas’ own memory failing to place importance on such a thing.

“A dead man,” James grits out.  “When did you receive this?”

“Last week,” Madi replies.  “It took some convincing before Mr. Hands was willing to reveal your location.  Though considering the time Billy has waited thus far, I imagine he will not be surprised by the delay.”

James shakes his head.  A dog flicking water free from his ears.  His pot is boiling, and James slaps the letter onto the table so he can address _that_ issue first.  “How did _Billy,_ ” he spits the name out like the most vile of curses, “Manage to find John and take him without a _single_ person noticing?”

It had struck Thomas as odd when he’d read about it.  Billy’s boast had been glimmering with hubris, but the logic had still failed.  How he’d done it successfully was more important at the moment then the fact he’d done it at all.  One they’d need to rectify immediately, of course.  But the other...spoke to a structural issue that needed addressing too.  

Thomas is struck by an almost laughable similarity to his _pirate problem of Nassau._ Yes the pirates were a problem, but the system that allowed the pirates to exist...that needed correcting.

To her credit, Madi doesn’t even seem surprised by the question.  Where Thomas has been working tirelessly to keep James’ shame of Captain Flint at bay, he offers no such assistance to John’s wife.  He doesn’t need to.  She accepts her failings immediately, taking responsibility in one quiet response.  “John and I have had difficulties since his decision to end our war.  He has not been living in the main village with me, but rather at a more remote structure by the shoreline.  There is no one near his home at night.  It was...would have been...a simple matter of overpowering him and returning to the beach.”

Thomas feels questions sparking in his forebrain.  He tries to work out what he wants to say first, but James beats him to it.  “And you thought John...left?  Fell into a hole?  Disappeared in the ocean?  It’s been six months, Madi.”

“It is not unusual for John to leave for extended periods of time without telling anyone where he went.”  This, she says with a heavy implication.  She doesn’t _need_ to motion to their home, but doing so makes her point entirely clear.

“I imagine it _is_ unusual for him to do so without a fucking _ship,_ though. _”_

Madi has the decency to look guilty at least.  Finally redirecting her eyes toward the letter lying abandoned on the table.  Clearing his throat, Thomas presses his hand to the table. “When he left last, John said that he may not return.  Why would he say that?”

“Since the end of the war, John has been assisting me and my people.  Earning my forgiveness for his actions.” James is unsurprised by Madi’s words.  Looking more exhausted by them than anything else.  Thomas knows about the warning he delivered John more than a year previously.  A curse that Madi would never be happy with the choice John made for her.  That she’ll never forgive him.

Considering John’s perpetual exhaustion and reluctance to discuss his wife in any detail whatsoever, Thomas had assumed James’ prediction had been accurate.  Still, hearing it confirmed outloud isn’t pleasant.  John had been terrified of learning that James hated him _too;_ he already believed his wife’s hatred was assured.  Working for forgiveness.  Trying to earn back love as if it were currency to be exchanged at a gambling table.

Anger spikes within Thomas.  “And how exactly has he done that?” he asks, remembering bullet holes and bruises.  Long cuts and twisted muscles.  Naps taken only when John’s body had been incapable of keeping him awake.  Endless sadness stalking John’s steps.  Propelling him forward into action, chasing something he may never receive.

Madi is not cowed.  She meets Thomas’ eyes directly.  “By freeing slaves, frustrating Nassau’s slave trade, and transporting freed slaves to ports where they can find passage back to their homes or where they can begin comfortable lives away from the chains of their masters.”

“You signed a treaty,” James reminds.

“And my treaty has been honored.  There are no escaped slaves on Maroon Island.  No Maroon has assisted in these raids.   _We_ have not returned to Nassau.”

“Semantics I imagine will not be honored should _anyone_ discover you even suggested it.  That _he_ is even a part of it.”

Not since Miranda has Thomas seen a woman so filled with a fiery passion.  A strength to hold onto her beliefs and a willingness to pursue them no matter the cost.  In _spite_ of the cost. “Then we will have the war after all.”

“Only without that cache you won’t have the money nor the influence to win it.” James is precise in his arguments.  Thomas had been mystified when he’d first explained the scenario to him at the Farm.  How James had come to him.  How it had all transpired.  How John had looked at the world, saw the lives of those he cared about in peril, and chose an option that ensured their survival at the cost of his own happiness.

For the rest of Thomas’ life he knows he will be indebted to John for that sacrifice.  For giving him James when he could have kept James to himself.  Instead of letting James continue down a path of self-destruction until they all died at sea.  Madi, however, is not similarly affected.  “He traded our war because of his selfishness,” she reminds.  “He traded _you_ into slavery and called it a kindness.  I was ready to die for this war, I was ready for _him_ to die for this war, and instead he gave us a life I did not want.  If a new war should start, then I will at least know we tried to make the best of the situation we have now.  We did not just let the horror happen, and accept it as fate.”

“That’s why he didn’t tell you where we were.”  James and Madi both turn to Thomas.  Frowning at him.  He doesn’t care.  “John knew we weren’t at the Farm any longer.  But he let you attack it.  Frustrated your efforts in finding us.  Ensured we stayed inside so you never knew where we were.” Madi’s brows are furrowing, but Thomas presses on.  “You wanted to free us from the Farm, but you also wanted your war.  He knew we weren’t there, and so he kept you from finding us.”

“You mentioned the cache, didn’t you?” James asks, and Madi doesn’t deny it.  Just straighten her back more.  Meet their eyes challengingly.  “When you said you were going to the Farm.  John didn’t stop you then.  He might have even suggested going along at that point, arguing that he’d help you do it.  But you mentioned the cache, and then he frustrated you.”

Madi’s jaw clenches.  Her lips purse.  She asks, “Will you help me find him?” and all Thomas can think of is the icy fury on John’s face the night he left.  

“Where did he go?” Thomas asks in turn.  “When Hands came to take him the last time he was here.  Where did he go?”

“To attack an English vessel carrying a cargo of forty-five slaves.”

“He thought he was going to die.”

“Since Nassau has been improving it’s prospects there has been an increased Naval presence.  Admirals sent to observe and oversee the situation.  It has been harder to strike at our intended targets without harm.”

James curses darkly.  Turns away from Madi and her letter and Thomas where he stands.  He presses his hands against the wall and he forces himself to breathe in and out steadily.  Trying to control the rage that’s battering through him with visceral awareness.

“Do you even care?” Thomas wonders.  He picks up the letter again and reads through the lines.  He’s already memorized it, but it hardly matters.  The words still exist between them all and so he reads them again and again and again.  “Billy says if either Flint or the chest aren’t delivered to him within the month, he’ll give John to the navy himself.  Something apparently you didn’t give a damn about when you sent him on a one man crusade against every slave trader in the Caribbean!”

“Did you care about your Lieutenant McGraw or your wife when they became the price you were required to pay for your dream of a restored Nassau?” For a moment, Thomas’ vision goes white.  His ears refuse to process.  Instead, taking all noise and turning it hollow.  Echoing vibrations off the walls of a wishing well.  Bouncing off the stone prison in Bethlem.  Calling back to a sense memory that is more imprint than form.

Miranda’s screaming as the men take Thomas away, Peter’s holding her back, and all he can think of is somewhere out there--James has gone to the Navy and they _know._  There are endless ways that story ends.  Endless nightmares that he’s spent over a decade plaguing himself with.  Lies and rumors digging into the very fabrics of his consciousness, tearing his reality apart.

He has had more than his fair share of moments to consider James in Bethlem.  Of Miranda.  Of them all in cells side by side, each told of the death of the other.  Driving one another mad with the sounds of screams that could not possibly belong to someone they know and yet are so alike in voice and reason.

Someone’s speaking to him.  He doesn’t know where or when or how the voice arrives, only the vaguest impression that someone is trying to get his attention.  A warm hand presses against the side of his face and he’s physically pulled from his revier.  Forced to look down so he could meet James’ eyes.  

Alive, and unhaunted by a place that he’s never been in.  Thomas grips James’ wrist.  Only barely making sense of the way James’ mouth is moving.  Asking if he’s all right.  The answer is obvious, and Thomas doesn’t care to discuss his emotional state at the moment.  Not here.  Not now.   _Certainly_ not with Madi.  Not when anger is clashing with despair and logic is fleeing by the second.  “Had I known what would have happened,” he manages to say despite his too dry mouth and his parched throat.  “I would have let Nassau burn, and each and every person there could have felt the lash a thousand fold over.”

If Madi wishes to strike him, he’s more than willing to strike her in return.  Spinning about in an endless cycle of pain that will get them nowhere, and achieve nothing save a brief moment of passing victory over the other.  “You’ve chosen instead, to lose the man who loves you, as well as the cause you fought for.  And if John must die trying to earn your forgiveness for saving your life, then _you_ will have to live with that.”

She flinches, but it doesn’t improve Thomas’ mood.  Doesn’t lift his temperament from the well of despair it had fallen into.  With the idea so fresh in his mind, all he can think of now is a new alteration to his frequent nightmares.  John swinging from the same hangman’s noose where Davy Something-or-Other died all those years ago.  Sent there by the people who claimed they loved him, and betrayed him most horribly in the end.

He feels sick.  Too sick to continue this conversation.  Too sick to pretend he’s all right with that outcome.  Too sick to think too hard on what it means if they do offer their services to Madi, despite the very real possibility that she truly _doesn’t_ care for John and is only interested in Captain Flint and his treasure.

Thomas pushes past James, past Madi, and into the hall.  He all but teeters against the wall as he navigates his way to his bedroom.  Collapsing onto the bed and sinking his head into his hands.  He wanted peace.  He wanted to stop thinking of violence and bloodshed.  He wanted an escape from the horrors of the past so that he could embrace the future in a way that meant he could live a meaningful existence.  

James has followed him to their room.  He’s standing in the doorway watching Thomas break.  John had tried to keep them separated from the life he’d continued living.  Tried to avoid it as best he could.  But Thomas knows from experience, isolation drives a man to do things they never thought they’d do.  

Madi had dangled the promise of forgiveness in front of John and kept it there on the condition he did what she asked, and in the end there’s only so much rejection a mind can take before it naturally seeks relief.  And even then, he’d tested the waters with Thomas first, _terrified_ to be rejected by James time and time again.

Thomas cannot remember the last time he’d felt this far out of his depth with a situation.  He cannot remember the last time his body felt more likely to explode.  He wants to run and cry and lay down and scream all at the same time.  More than anything, he wants to find Israel Hands and continue the beating he’d given the last time they’d seen one another.

He wants to ask him what in God’s name the man had been thinking striking John when he’d come to Thomas and James to find some measure of peace.  Why he’d done so then, and what words had he hissed into John’s ears to make him turn away from the kindness James had extended at long last and swear he’d likely never return again.

“I want to find him.” James’s words ring loud and clear.  Thomas looks up.  “I know you’d rather burn Nassau to the ground then repeat the mistakes of the past, and in that regard I can agree.  But…”

“He’s family, James,” Thomas interjects.  “Do you truly believe I’d tell you no?” James doesn’t say anything.  Merely looks at Thomas.  Waiting.  Expectant.  “I’m coming too.”

“No.”

Thomas laughs.  “Oh my dear, in this, there will be no debate.”  James sets his jaw, but Thomas doesn’t care.  He has spent ten years arguing with stone walls everywhere from London to Savannah.  And after ten years, he knows how to make the walls break.  “I’m coming too.”

 

***

 

Madi’s ship is nothing like the great Navy vessels that James used to sail on, nor the merchant trading ships that Thomas grew familiar with, nor even the small schooners that ferry passengers from one place to another.  It’s something in the middle of all that.  Quick and agile, able to move swiftly, but not offer much in the way of firepower.  

Thomas freely admits he knows next to nothing when it comes to the good construction and make up of a vessel.  He leaves that to James, who prowls the ship from bow to stern to inspect every inch of its possibilities.  Aside from the first few minutes where he followed James around to see him in his element, Thomas takes James’ persisting silence as answer enough to his mood and leaves the man alone.  Staying in the Captain’s cabin that Madi had graciously offered James and he to stay in while they travelled.

Thomas had waited just long enough to watch the precise moment when his retired pirate and gentleman farmer slide back into a role that he’d been struggling to cast off since their reunion.  That moment where he wasn’t even a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, but something else altogether different.  James had been fastidious about shaving his beard over the past year, and while his face still reminds Thomas of who he used to be, it’s not the same.  And this too is a storm that they must weather.   

James doesn’t appreciate being strong armed into anything, and apparently Captain Flint likes it even less.  He’s been positively frosty where Thomas has been concerned since they left the house.  They’ve argued about courses of action before, however, and one thing Thomas is certain of: James always comes around eventually.

But in the meantime, retreating to the cabin seems as safe a plan as any.  Thomas settles in on a chair and pulls out John’s copy of the _Canterbury Tales._ It’s how Madi finds him hours later.  James apparently perfectly content to be roaming the top deck and conversing with the men on Madi’s crew.  He and Hands falling into an uncomfortable alliance that Thomas has no desire to understand or appreciate.

Madi is at home on this ship.  She walks across the floorboards with the same confidence and ease she walked on dry land with.  She is treated with the utmost respect by everyone.  It’d be the talk of salons back in London if Thomas cared about such things.  Instead, he turns the page in his book and continues to pretend he’s reading.

She takes her time in choosing which words to say.  He doesn’t blame her for that.  Considering the fact there are more than a few topics she’s likely trying to sort through, he appreciates her taking her time.  Plucking the right words out and organizing them in the most agreeable fashion possible.  She decides on, “I am sorry for interfering with your peace.”

It’s hardly good enough.  Thomas turns the page.  He’s feeling petty and belligerent.  Miranda used to chastise him and tell him that his trouble with being a member of society is that he is too concerned with the _right_ path, and damn anyone who doesn’t follow it with him.  She had a point then, some of the people he damned had damned him right back.  But those he called friends, with only one glaring exception, had been a part of his life and his heart for his entire life.

He’d never regretted their loyalty.

And he never spurned it either.

“Your interruption isn’t something I truly mind.  I’ve been interested in meeting you for some time.”  He makes a point to at least read this page, even if half his mind is focused on how Madi walks about the cabin.  Inspecting books on the shelves as if she actually cares about them.  James had asked if this was John’s ship, but Madi had said it wasn’t.  His would attract more attention than they wanted, and so they were merely borrowing this from a friend.  No one bothered to ask much more than that.

She pauses in her scrutiny to glance toward Thomas briefly.  Head tilting in consideration.  “You do not like me.”

“I don’t know you,” he corrects without pause.  “I know only of what you’ve done.”

“And what have I done that is more unforgivable to you than what John or Captain Flint have done to others?”

“Nothing,” Thomas tells her sincerely.  “Only, you didn’t do it to _others_ , and I find I have little forgiveness for the distinction.” He doesn’t think anyone’s scolded her in a long while.  Doesn't think she’s had someone tell her she’s wrong, and forced her to react to it.  He’s seen that before.  With boys he grew up with in London who gained power and lorded it over those beneath them.

But he’s not John, so eager for her affection.  He’s not James, who has always catered to those with power and known how to circumvent them to achieve his own ends.  He’s the son of a Lord in his own right, and he’s had power too.  Not a Captaincy or an army, perhaps.  But wealth and privilege and enforced respect earned from a station granted as a birthright.

He’s had that power stripped of him too.

If there’s one thing Thomas knows, is sometimes the greatest lessons come from being told you’re wrong.  And they come from accepting that as fact, even when you don’t want to.  You’re not always the smartest one in the room, even if you truly believe you are.  One thing is more eternal than god, and that is Human Nature. She needs to know that if she's going to lead.

Madi does not seem like a particularly unreasonable person.  If anything, James has always been fond of her in his stories.  John, when he could be enticed to mention her at all, had always been bordering on revenant. Thomas has no desire to persist in a feud with Madi.  But he further doesn’t desire to pretend she’s been right.  Nor wait for her to correct her actions.  Sometimes, the act of a friend comes in issuing caution, and speaking words you simply don’t want to hear.  

“There’s a tale,” he starts.  “In this book, called _The Wife of Bath._ ” He hands the book to her, and she takes it.  Her fingers stroke along the spine of the volume.  Rubbing the cover with her thumbs.  “You should read it.”

“I have,” she replies.  “John had a copy in his home.” For a moment, Thomas isn’t sure what to say.  Madi isn’t looking at him.  Instead, she’s inspecting the cover. Nails tracing over the leather binding and the stamped imprint.

“And you read it?”

“I read it to him.” It’s not the answer Thomas had been expecting.  It shows on his face, because Madi smiles.  Faint yet sad.  “Do you believe the Wife’s message?  That a woman’s greatest desire is sovereignty over her husband?”

“I believe that’s a very dangerous question for a man to answer,” Thomas replies.  It makes Madi’s eyes crinkle at the corners, but her smile only seems to grow more sad.  More broken.  In a strange way, she reminds him of John.  Exhausted by a duty she doesn’t know how to escape from.  Incapable of explaining.

Of all of Chaucer’s tales, _The Wife of Bath_ is perhaps the least flattering for a wife to read her husband.  Particularly a wife whose very nature is defined by her role as a sovereign.  Thomas is having a hard time imagining John taking the story particularly well.  He may have smiled and nodded.  Played his game and enjoyed the company his wife deigned to give him, but actually _enjoying_ the _experience..._ that’s something else entirely.

“You told me to read this, because you believe I act in this way.  Wishing only to control John’s actions and have him do as I say.  In the end, once the knight accepts this as correct behavior, he receives the rewards for his labor.  A beautiful wife to whom he may live happily with.  But you did not mean to compliment my actions.”

“No.”  He meant to show her how unreasonable they were.  The Wife’s tale is told from the perspective of a woman who is free with her sexuality, and free with her opinions.  She is the one who dictates that the man in the story only achieves his happiness when he accepts his wife’s sovereignty over his own.  And from that perspective, it casts a shadow on the wife’s disposition.  Leaving her to be a flawed caricature, and not a heroine or lady to be admired.

If it could ever have been considered a compliment, it’s backhanded at best, shrewd at worst.  Madi doesn’t appear offended in the slightest.  “The Wife had many husbands.”  It’s not a part of the story that Thomas had expected her to want to talk about.  Nor what he’d been referring to.  His marriage with Miranda had not been conventional to say the least.  But it meant no less or more than his devotion to James.

“Husbands she, for all intents and purposes, pursued, married, and copulated with _after_ the death of the preceding one.” Madi’s gaze remains on the book.  Her thumbs keep rubbing it back and forther.  Posture stiff and unyielding.

“When John traded away our war, he provided for a man name Julius to rise in power within our camp.  Respected by those he brought with him to our home, Julius became a spokesperson and enforcer of sorts.  One not easily trifled with, and one who is not afraid to create new laws and creeds.  Belief structures many of _my_ people have begun to adopt as their own.” The ship rocks beneath their feet.  Crew members shout and laugh from wherever they’re stationed.  Thomas thinks he can even hear James voice amongst them, but all of that’s secondary.

Madi holds out John’s book.  Returning it to Thomas’ possession.  “When Woodes Rogers held me prisoner, he and Billy Bones made it clear that the reward for my cooperation would be the very treaty that John encouraged Julius to sign.  They held that treaty before me, and they offered it to me as the solution to my people’s problems.  Their suffering.  They promised me John’s life should I cooperate.  And instead, I prepared myself for death.  Prepared myself to face his death.”

She cannot be older than twenty-five.  She’s a child.  Just as John’s a child.  The pair of them far too young to be managing nations and legions of men.  To be staring death in the face, and making decisions that will impact hundreds, if not thousands of lives.  “I spent hours imagining how it would happen.  How they would bring John’s body to me.  How I would see him laid before me.  How I would react upon seeing it.”

Thomas recalls doing the same for James.  For Miranda.  Preparing himself for their deaths, and then convincing himself they’d already happened.  Never daring to believe he’d see them again. Not until the moment James stood before him at the Farm, and he realized that half his nightmare was over.  

“When my fears did not come to pass, and instead, the very thing I had been rejected as an option replaced those fears with a new grim reality, Julius became the man my people turned to.  Julius, and not John.”

“You sent him from the village,” Thomas reminds.  

She doesn’t deny it.  Only pauses to consider her next words.  “I was angry.  For a long time, I was angry.  Angry at him for taking my choice away.  Angry at Woodes Rogers for making the choice even possible.  For drafting a treaty for John to find and have signed in _my_ name, when I had committed myself to a cause I believed far more important than our lives.”  

Finally, she meets Thomas’ eyes.  “I had consigned myself to death, but I did not die.  And the life I have now...I do not know how to live.” She braces one hand against the Captain’s desk.  Holding her upright as she presses forward.  “My mother has been ill this past year.  At times, we feared for her death.”  Thomas can remember all too well how Hands had dragged John back home once for that very circumstance.  Muttered threats propelling John into action.  “She wishes I marry before her passing.”

“You’re already married,” Thomas replies.  

“No one knows.” It’s not true.  Israel knows, James knows, _he_ knows.  There are those who know.  “ _She,”_ Madi corrects, “doesn’t know.”

“Why?”

“To marry me requires a blessing neither John nor I saw fit to ask for at the time.  We’d only known each other for weeks then.  Months at best.  Our marriage was quiet.  Personal.   _Not_ in the best interests of my people and their desires.”

A sick feeling rises in Thomas’s throat.  “And Julius is.”

She nods.  Slowly.  Her smile long gone.  She is old and weary.  Exhausted from a war she had not prepared herself to wage.  She was willing to die for her people.  Living for them, however, is another matter entirely.  “He is their choice.  Strong, capable, charismatic.  He speaks for them, and understands them.  He is a suitable candidate for my husband.”  His qualities are all the listings of a numbered list in a book somewhere.  Qualities that Kings dictate for their children.  “However...He...is not _my choice_.”

Thomas thinks of John and the devotion he has toward Madi.  The tender love that had always been so evident when he spoke of her.  His agonizing pain that sparked whenever the topic arose.  “John hasn’t been saving slaves simply to earn your forgiveness.”

She shakes her head.  “He has been attempting to earn back the goodwill of my people.  To present himself as a candidate worthy of their respect.  So that my mother may honor our arrangement, rather than demand its revocation.  But my people know that their lives are meaningless to John.  That he does not care for them, their children, or their futures.  He cares for _me._ And while that may be the act of a good man, and a good husband, it is not the act of a King.  For them to approve of this match...he will need to be a King for them.  And I know, it is the one thing he cannot do.  He...he _loves_ me more than he will ever love them, and they have responded by choosing a man that I abhor to replace him.”

Pushing away from the desk, Madi stands before Thomas.  Toe to toe.  Her fingers reach out and tap the book in his hands.  “The Wife stated that all women wish for sovereignty over their husbands, well I declare it false.  I wish for no sovereignty over John, I wish instead for the _removal_ of the sovereignty that I possess, so that if the war that I had planned to die in will never go into effect, I may at the very least _live_ with a man who was willing to name me above all others.  And care for me as no one else ever has.

“I want my husband back, Mr. Mcgraw.  And if that means every last pearl in Flint’s chest remains firmly underground then I will have it so.  I do not care about that chest.  I just want to bring John home.  John once traded my people’s future for my safety, and if I must do the same—then I will do so now.”

“You’ll abandon the Maroons?”   

“Julius is the King my people want.  The man who will enact the change that they desire.  They yearn for our wedding so that he may be theirs in both name and deed, but I will not marry that man.  He may be many things, but he is not _mine._ And if the choice is between denying my husband to retain my place with my people...to _marry_ Julius in place of John, or to remain with the only person on that island who cared enough about me to—” she cuts herself off.  Voice stuttering to a halt.  Tears pressing to her eyes.  “He cares,” she whispers meaningfully.  “He _cares._  And so I will do what is necessary, so he _knows_ that I care too.”

She tilts her chin up, bold and defiant, and it’s an act.  She’s terrified.  She’s terrified of a future she wasn’t raised for.  A future where she’s no longer a Queen.  No longer in command.  A future where she does not know what her next step is or which course she will follow.  There’s uncertainty all around her, and she’s still walking towards it.  Strong, and determined.  Refusing to be cowed.

Thomas can only think to stand.  Set their book to the side, and pull Madi to his chest in a tight embrace.  “He’ll know,” Thomas swears to her.  “I promise you...he’ll know.”

They’re going to bring John home.  

No matter what.


	4. The Franklin's Tale

* * *

Madi’s plight with Julius haunts Thomas’s dreams.  He wakes frequently in the night.  Turning over and peering across the Captain’s cabin to where Madi sleeps.  One of her guards is always at her side, a faithful protector of her virtue.  It’s hours before dawn, three bells echoing in Thomas’ ear, when he gives up his attempt and slides from his hammock.

Stuffing his feet into his boots, Thomas slides his arms in one of James’ coats and finds his way to the deck.  James is still there.  Leaning against the rail and watching the water.  There’s a keen sense of longing on his face.  Like he’s been dehydrated for years and now, surrounded by all this water, he longs only to pitch himself into it and never rise again.  Swallowing as much of it as he can before he eventually gives way into nothing.

“Did you know?”  Thomas asks.  He stands next to James, and lets his arm rest against his.  Only surprised a little when James’ eyes flutter.  He blinks rapidly, then turns, vision clearing.  “Were you sleeping on your feet, Lieutenant?” The title slips out unbidden, and they both hesitate.  James’ lips parting as though he intends to answer, before eventually deciding to curl into a soft smile instead.  Thomas is tempted to apologize, but thinks better of it.  Their past is their own.  For all the flaws and imperfections, without the pain there would not be love.

“Distracted, my lord,” James eventually says.  The pattern and cadence more comforting than Thomas would care to admit.  He is biased, he knows, but he _does_ love to hear James murmur his honorific.  Loves the sound of it growling across the distance between them.  It’s far too tempting to say it again.

He leans closer.  Their brows nearly touching as they whisper forbidden words into the silence between them.  Waves offering them quiet companionship as the few sailors manning their stations pointedly ignore their presence.  “With thoughts of me, Lieutenant?  Or have I lost your heart to another?”

James tilts his head and kisses Thomas’ brow.  Tells him “Never,” though they both know that isn’t true.  They’ve both loved another.  Love her still.  And they both miss her with every first breath of dawn.

“I’d thought you were planning to pitch yourself overboard,” Thomas admits, gently steering away from the loss that has sprung between them.  “Looking as you did.”

“I was considering the possibilities of our future.”  

“A dangerous pastime.”

“I know.” Nothing good ever comes from considering the future.  But for a commander, Thomas suspects it’s nearly impossible to not try to plan for each possibility that may arise.  If one knows all the outcomes, one cannot be surprised.  Thomas isn’t so naive as to believe there’s no danger in this venture.  Nor is he insensitive to James’ reasons for wishing he’d stay behind.

Even before Bethlem, Thomas had grown used to those he cared about leaving on their grand adventures.  Waiting on the shoreline as James set sail with the Queen’s Navy.  Catching only the faintest glimpses of him when he returned to shore.  Perhaps if Thomas had seen what James had seen, he would have known Nassau was lost to them.  Perhaps his idealism could have been set to bed, and he could have continued living the life of Lord Thomas Hamilton.  

He’s tired of staying behind while the world changes.  Tired of existing in a constant state of reaction, never able to change events before they turn sour.  “Has Madi told you about Julius?” Thomas asks before he forgets why he came out here.  James’ expression doesn’t change, but he nods his head anyway.  

“Not Madi, though, Hands.” Irritation sparks immediately at the man’s name.  Casting a brief glance about the deck and rigging, Thomas is only glad he’s not within eyesight now.  It earns him an amused twinkle in James’ eyes, but it’s more subdued than their usual bouts of teasing.  “He cares for John,” James defends quietly.  “In whatever manner someone like him is capable of caring.”

“He struck him.”

It’s a petulant argument that’s met with an acerbic, “As have I.”  

“Not with...you didn’t do it because…”  Rare is the day that Thomas cannot form words.  When he cannot manage to piece together a narrative that justifies his thoughts.  His dislike of Hands extends primarily from the emotional reaction the sight of him elicits.  The man’s detestable, and there’s something about him that Thomas simply cannot abide.  

Unfortunately, James offers no assistance.  He waits for Thomas to attempt to furrow out the argument on his own, and Thomas is altogether too tired and unhappy to manage that now.  “John _allowed_ Hands to strike him.”

“Sometimes John needs a good smack.”  James says it so bluntly that Thomas nearly falls in shock.  He stares at his companion.  Mouth going slack.  Uncomprehending.  “I do not say it out of malice.  Only, John’s behavior comes in extremes.  Violent anger is not his natural state, nor does he possess a particularly keen desire to embrace confrontation.  His failings as a Pirate King came from the fact that it was a legend of a man who didn’t exist.  John is far more aware of what the cost of embracing the world's darkness is than most would give him credit.  It distracts him, tempts him, and can lead him to make decisions that are not always in his, or, frankly, anyone else’s best interest.”

“So Israel Hands smacks him and it makes everything better?” If he says _yes,_ Thomas may never forgive him for it.  But James does it anyway.

He nods his head and ignores Thomas’ fury.  Instead, continuing his argument as if it were valid and sincere.  “John will follow the endless path down into the depths of despair and let it swallow him whole.  He will let the pain of the world seep into the tender whorls of his brain and tear him apart, and he will let the monsters devour him.  He will do it, while believing he can overcome it.  Chasing shadows in the hopes that within the pits of hell, there may yet be light.  And when he follows that road, when he walks into the belly of the beast, he does so knowing he may never find his way out again.”

“Why do it?”

“Because he knows of no other way to control the people he needs to follow him.  To reach the goal he wants.” It doesn’t explain the smack, nor James’ tolerance of it.  Something that James sighs now about, slowly working to correct.  “When I was drowning in rage and fury, wanting nothing more than to destroy the world that took you and Miranda away from me, John followed me into the dark.  Stayed there beside me and let me rage.  Let me hate.  Let me burn.  And by standing there at my side, he provided a possibility that I had long ago doubted.  He reminded me I was not alone.”

The confession is uncomfortable.  The pain in James’ voice tangible.  The ship creaks beneath them and waves rock the hull, and all Thomas can do is stare.  Watch as James’ face twists.  His agony so very, very, clear.  “I didn’t realize it at first, but it was during that moment when he made the decision to follow me into hell, that he cast one hand out.  Blindly reaching for stable ground.  A tether to hold him to the light.”

“If you say it was Hands--”

“--Madi.” _Thank God._  “It was Madi.”  Thomas could nearly weep with relief, the anticipation of James’ explanation driving his mind to jump to the most unpleasant of conclusions.  “She gave him peace, stability.  She listened when John needed someone to speak to.  She did not enter the pit that I dug for us.  She did not follow him down to the hell of my own making.  She, instead, cast out her line and held it taut.  Giving John a way back to himself when the world painted him a villain.  When Billy Bones created a legend that proclaimed for all the world to see that _Long John Silver_ was a man to be feared above all others...she was there to remind him that he was not a villain in reality.”

He pauses.  Draws in a shuddering breath.  Ever so slowly, James removes the boatswain whistle from around his neck.  He holds it gently in his palm, before shifting.  Offering the chain for Thomas to take.  Frowning, Thomas does so, lips dipping even lower when he realizes that James has not released the opposite side of the chain.  

James shifts, moving so both their arms are fully extended, the whistle dangling between them as they each hold fast.  Bauble bouncing lightly in the air as it connects their two stations of equal importance.  “John set himself up as a center point between two guiding forces,” James says carefully.  He tips his head down toward the whistle, and Thomas follows his gaze.  Watching the trinket with rapt fascination.  “With one steeped in darkness, the other drenched in light, John facilitated the pull between both of these forces.  Serving as the balance within the equation our three sides created.  Ensuring our stability as we proceeded forward.

“He reached down into the night and Madi held him aloft.  And with their tie, he ensured that I was not left to drift into madness, he was not allowed to suffer needlessly, and she remained mindful of the complex reality our situation had created.  Each of us using the other for our own gain, but always at the risk that if one side faltered--it would pull the center away from its neutrality.”

At this, James jerks his arm roughly. With his Fingers still tight around the chain, it pulls Thomas forward.  His balance waivers, and he nearly falls, but James jerks on the chain again - moving directions in such a way that Thomas catches himself at the just the right moment.  Feet finding balance once more.  He adjusts himself, returning to his previous position.  Pulling so that the whistle returns to where it once was.  James letting him do it, mouth twitching as Thomas finds their place once more.  The metaphor suddenly clear. “There’s always give an take on the line. That’s how it works. But what do you suppose happens when one side lets go?”

He tilts his head toward Thomas encouragingly, and Thomas relaxes his grip.  Letting the chain slip loose.  He realizes the error too late.  James has also released the whistle and it starts to fall.  Thomas snaps his other hand out, trying to catch it before it hits the deck.  He manages to snag it between his fingers before it’s too late, and almost as soon as he does, James’ hand clasps around Thomas’.  “Sometimes you need something to shock you into action.  To keep you in air long enough to find your place back on the line.  To give you purpose again.  To give someone time to find their way back to you, and you to them.”

The chain feels hot within Thomas’ grip.  The whistle dangling innocently.  He feels like he betrayed John.  Going for the Whistle even knowing he was supposed to let it fall.  He hadn’t been able to.  “Hands doesn’t intend to hurt John when he strikes him like that.  He intends to stop the chaos of thoughts that are keeping John from knowing which side of the line he’s meant to be pulling on, and help him see how to move forward.  If I, or Madi, or even John himself thought Israel meant to do John harm...we never would have allowed it to transpire.  Israel Hands has done enough harm in this world that he should be held accountable for.  Don’t hold this against him instead.”

Releasing Thomas’ hand, James shifts so that he can take the whistle back properly.  When Thomas releases it, this time James doesn’t let it fall.  He returns it to its place around his neck, and he looks back out toward the sea.  

Thomas follows his gaze.  Watching the horizon.  The sun will rise behind them, and yet James seems to be looking for daylight out where the sky meets the waves.  Thomas is tempted to ask who had been who in _their_ relationship all those many years ago.  If Thomas had been the darkness, pulling James after him.  If it had been Miranda in the center... or perhaps at the end. 

 

He wonders what happens if you close the loop. One hand reaching out to the other side.  Turning the line to a figure with fixed points.  No longer dependant on a center structure, but on a balance that cares for all those involved.  He lets his hand rest on James.  Leaves it there as a promise and a request, and James turns his wrist so they can slide their fingers into place.  

The sun starts to rise behind them, and more sailors wake at the sound of the bell being rung.  The cook will start the morning mess, and duties will start up for the morning watch.  Neither of them move from their position.  They stay there right up until the moment someone shouts, “Sails!” and the dazed pre-morning activity turns into a flurry of movement.

Madi joins them on the deck.  Her guard beside her.  Hands only a step behind.  Spy glasses seem in short supply, however, and so Thomas waits until someone manages to see through the gloom to determine just who they’ve approached.  “It’s the _Elysium!”_ The name is meaningless to him, but the crew seems appeased by the knowledge.  

One glance at Madi, though, proves just how pleased she is by the news.  Her jaw is set and she spares a glance over her shoulder at her guard who dashes off to make whatever preparations her wordless command instructed him to do.  “The _Elysium?”_ James asks her.  It’s said with just enough implication that Thomas suspects he knows exactly what ship that is.

“He thought you would find it amusing,” Hands offers as a reply.  

Ah.   _Ah._ It’s John’s ship.  Which is something that shouldn’t make Madi react like that.  Why would the sight of her husband’s ship sow such irritation within her?  Unless-- “Madi, when you said that _this_ ship belonged to a friend…” She looks at him coolly.  “You traded John’s ship for _Julius’_ so you could sail into Savannah unmolested?”

The _Elysium_ is drawing closer, and despite having no personal preference toward either ship prior to this very moment, a rather petty desire to maim the Captain’s cabin has suddenly made its home in Thomas’ mind.  His nose wrinkles as he considers the thought that this _Julius_ is likely in John’s cabin right now.  Doing whatever it is he does.  “You’ve never met the man,” James reminds him.

“And quite frankly, I’d much rather be inspecting the Greys’ collection of Egyptian artifacts than meet him now,” Thomas snipes.  James clenches his teeth.  His lips twitching visibly, trying not to laugh.  

Miranda has been a burning hole between them since their reunion, but Thomas will be damned if he lets her continue to fill their hearts with tragedy rather than joy.  She was his best friend, and she’d hate the thought of them being tortured by her memory.  

The _Elysium_ is nearly a size and a half of the ship they’re currently on.  Hooks fly over the rails and pulls the vessels together. Boards and netting reaches out so the crews can travel from one ship to the other.  As they wait, Madi stands with her hands behind her back.  Watching with the poise of a greek statue.  Carved in stone and posture precise.  She’s as much a work of art as anything in the Greys’ collection.

Julius is immediately obvious.  He stands with the kind of imperious nature that any leader of men adopts.  It matches Madi’s, but carries a level of arrogance that clashes with the quiet confidence she maintains.  He’s taller than she is, with wider shoulders and thick muscles.  There are scars on his neck and hands.  A firm set to his jawline.  

When he crosses from the _Elysium_ he approaches Madi with single minded focus.  Peering down his nose at her and proclaiming, “I would speak with you regarding our circumstances... _ma’am,_ ” the moment he draws near. Not since London had Thomas heard a _'ma'am'_ so insincere.  

Thomas has spent time with Kings and Queens.  He’s danced in their parlors, he’s hosted salons that nobility flocked to in the secret of the night.  He’s fucked his lovers in the backrooms of the rich and powerful’s homes.  He knows how they act, and he knows how they behave.  Never in his life has he been more _elated_ at the quiet displays of power that came from _knowing_ one is in command.

Julius may be the next heir apparent of the Maroons, but until that decision is made, Madi is their leader.  She looks at Julius as though he were a thing the sea coughed onto her boot.  Beneath her in every way.  She does not blink as he towers over her.  She does not step away from him to place distance between them.  Julius stands closer than is appropriate, and Madi does nothing to correct him.  Instead, she allows him his place, and she stares at him the whole time.  Forcing him to make eye contact every second he stands in her presence.

When he’s finished his request, Madi stays perfectly still for several moments longer.  She waits until Julius squirms, breaking eye contact to flick a quick look about the ship.  Every head is turned their way.  Not even the deck hands are pretending to be occupied with their tasks.  Without saying a word, Madi takes one step forward, and Julius immediately steps out of her way.  He turns, letting her walk through him towards the _Elysium._

Standing with perfect Naval posture, James offers his hand to the young Queen, and she takes it.  Giving him the honor and privilege of assisting her ascent up the boards leading to John’s ship.  Her guard falls in line behind her.  Israel Hands just behind him.  James follows, then Thomas.  Their procession moves in silence, following Madi as she walks with utter confidence to the _Elysium’s_ Captain’s cabin.  

Not since London has James had the opportunity to watch someone so perfectly eviscerate their opponent without saying a word or raising a hand.  Julius follows them like a recalcitrant child.  Madi has already placed herself behind John’s desk, and there _is_ something familiar about this room.  

There’s a warm blanket on the hanging pallet that seems pleasant and quaint.  There are books on sailing in the shelves.  Mathematics, cartography, geography, sea charts and journals from sailors.  They’re the books of a student.  Someone dedicated to learning how to sail and sail well.  There’s insecurity on those shelves.  There’s uncertainty.  

Julius shuts the door, and stalks toward Madi.  He leaves the desk between them, pausing only to scowl at her retinue.  “I had wished to discuss our concerns privately.”

“You remember Captain Flint, do you not?” Madi asks, ignoring his comment and gesturing toward James with the slightest flick of her eyes.  

The Farm had been filled with rumors and legends of the great Captain Flint.  Thomas isn’t sure what he expected when someone was met with the name, but he isn’t expecting Julius to barely react. A brief glance and to his left and then focus back on Madi.  “Your intention is to travel to this Skeleton Island, meet with Billy Bones and retrieve Long John Silver?”

Madi lifts a brow.  She doesn’t verbally respond.  It infuriates Julius.  Has him slamming his hand on the table between them.  Madi’s guard steps forward, Hands folds in on her left.  James hasn’t moved, and so neither has Thomas, but the tension in the room has increased a thousandfold.  “Do that again,” Madi says slowly, calmly, “And you will not find me so tolerant.”

“I apologize,” Julius forces out.  He hardly sounds sincere.  A scolded dog whining for scraps at the table.  Eyeing the roast in hope of filching it while the master’s attention is spare.  “But I must express my concern for your endeavor.”

When no one moves, Julius grows emboldened.  He straightens his back and tries to fold himself into an appropriate posture.  One that is meant to lead Madi to reason rather than intimidate her into compliance.  Thomas is fast learning she is not one to fold under the threat of violence, though. She is not scared of such things.

Her defiance is her strength, and she excels at defying those who threaten her either by actions or words.  She’d shown her strength in retaliating at Thomas’ home, snapping hard and fast enough to force him from the room.  She’d gotten what she’d wanted in the end, James and him assisting her cause.  It hadn’t been kind, but she’d managed it.

If Julius thinks he can force her to bend to his will, he doesn’t know her.  Frankly, Thomas wonders if that’s what John finds so enticing about his wife.  The fact that Madi is capable of making her position clear, unwilling to falter from her course once her mind is on it.  It is also, ironically, the very cause of their conflicts with each other.  The both of them are stubborn fools, but they are stubbornly in love.  It must count for something.

“Your concern has been heard before,” Madi states firmly.  “I have heard your arguments, and I choose to--”

“--I gave you my vessel, and sailed this one, under the understanding that you were on a mission to assist our people...your promise to me being that this will be the truest sign of our willingness to work together.”

“And has it not thus far?” Her sincerity could almost be considered true.  Her expression unyielding.

Julius scowls despite that, thrusting one finger onto the table to accentuate his point. “Captain Flint and his treasure are _not_ for our people’s benefit.  This was established long ago, it cannot be undone now. ”  Madi’s eyes narrow infinitesimally.  The only sign Thomas can see that she’s dissatisfied with Julius in any way.

“I would...urge you... _ma’am_ to reconsider your course of actions immediately.”  He doesn’t continue with his threat.

“And I would urge you to be on your way, Julius,” Madi replies.  “It is a long journey back to the island, and I understand how difficult you find being on the open water.” From her right, Hands makes a loud snorting sound.  Piggy and awful.  Julius glowers at him, but the man is unbothered.  

He walks about the desk and leans into Julius’ space.  Bending over him in a way that Madi could not hope to replicate.  “Best be on your way then, little man,” Hands growls.  “Before you see something you’d disagree with.”  

“Your mother will know of this, you understand?” Julius asks Madi.

“I understand.  Now.  We must be on our way.” It’s a dismissal that’s only briefly resisted.  Julius doesn’t seem to know how he should depart.  If he should shake her hand, bow, or try to embrace her.  Hands shifts to keep Julius from making any moves toward her, though, and eventually Julius settles on a stiff nod.  He spins on his heel and leaves, giving Madi the chance to order Hands to the Helm.  

“Get us under weigh.”

People start shuffling.  John’s crew starts shouting orders at one another.  Hands barking for them to get where they need to go and _now._  Madi’s bodyguard pauses only to return Thomas' satchel to him. All of his belongings inside. Thomas doesn't know when the man collected it, but he's ever so grateful it hadn't been lost in his haste to watch Madi eviscerate Julius. Then, the guard steps from the room and closes the door, leaving just the three of them to the soft quiet solitude of John’s cabin.

There are endless things that they could say now.  Plans that they should discuss.  Methods they should review.  Skeleton Island is their next stop.  But they don’t address those concerns immediately.  Instead, James manages a half formed smile, eyes twinkling as he catches Madi’s attention.  “Do you want me to sink her now?  It’d be a shame to lose such a decent ship, and we’d need to find a new way back to Savannah, but if we hurry we can ready the guns and--”

Madi’s laughter is music itself.  Rich and timbered like Miranda’s harpsichord, filled with amusement.  Her shoulders shake, and the frosty veneer of a Maroon Queen slips away to be replaced by a young woman in desperate need for relief.  “You do not believe Julius would be a good match for me?  That instead, I should remain with my no good rotten pirate?” She’s smiling at the insult however.  Something quiet and personal that James must understand because he smiles back.  

Thomas wonders if it’s a pirate thing.  Self-deprecation.  Either way, he isn’t surprised when James kisses the crown of Madi’s head.  Nudging her chin up with his finger so he can make sure they’re meeting each other’s eyes.  

“There was once a knight that loved and worked hard to serve a lady in his best manner.  And many a labors, many great chivalric exploits, he wrought for his lady before she was won.  For she was the fairest of all under the sun, and also moreover come of such noble ancestry that this knight hardly dared, for fear, to tell her his woe, his pain, and his distress.”  James has a talent for storytelling.  His voice is soothing to listen to, his words lyrical.  

Thomas settles on John’s cot.  His satchel pressing against his side.  He looks forward to sharing John’s book with him once more.  In reading these same passages to John, and hearing his reaction.  James sits on the edge of John’s desk, and continues his tale.  “But at the last she, for his worthiness, and namely for his meek submission, has taken such a pity on his suffering, that privately she agreed with him to take him for her husband and her lord.”

At this, James smiles deeper, leaning in closer.  As if, conspiratorially sharing the remainder of his passage.  “Of such lordship as men have over their wives, of course.”  It makes her laugh again.  Makes her relax.  Focused only on his voice and his distractions.  “And, to lead the more blissfully their lives, of his free will he swore her as a knight that never in all his life he, day or night, should take upon himself any mastery against her will, nor show her jealousy, But obey her, and follow her will in everything.”

“With such ardent supporters as yourself, reciting poetry on John’s behalf and emboldening him with such pretty words, how could any Lady deny such a man?”

“Well,” Thomas sighs.  “There’s always Julius.”

Madi’s laughing again, covering her mouth with her hand.  James’ shoulders are shaking and tears of mirth are pressing against his lashes.  From around his neck, his boatswain whistle gleams in the fresh morning light.  For a brief moment, Thomas cannot help but wonder if they all took hold what would happen.  

If they notice his laughter abruptly coming to a stop, no one notices.  Instead, they start planning their next move on Skeleton Island, and Thomas is left to his thoughts.  Silent and unobtrusive, sitting amongst John’s things, with John’s book pressed firmly against his side.


	5. The Prioress' Tale

It happens like this:

John’s lying on his cot, eyes closed, arm around Madi’s back.  They’re naked.  A thin woven blanket is draped casually across their legs, but it’s meaningless.  A hardly there creature comfort that blocks the slightest chill, but doesn’t provide enough heat on its own.  Madi’s curled against John’s side.  One of her legs between his thighs.  She has an arm tucked underneath her, the other is resting on his chest.  Over his heart.  Her fingers are sliding through the faint peach fuzz that makes up his chest hair.  Swirling about absentmindedly.

They have only a few candles lit.  Darkness casting shadows on them from all sides.  Through John’s closed lids, he can still make out the flickering lights.  Each wick reaching its end, dying with quiet flutters of passing breath.  

He has a new cut on his side.  A gash he’d received from his most recent expedition.  Ben had grown rather skilled in doctoring since Howell’s death, and he’d pressed poultices and bandages against John’s would until the cut scarred over appropriately.  Madi’s fingers trace the edge of it now.  Humming thoughtfully as she does.

“You have not been taking care of yourself,” she tells him quietly.  Once, he might have teased her.  Said something about her taking care of him well enough for the both of them.  The joke fades before it even reaches his mouth.  He cannot even taste them on his tongue.  Cannot feel the shape they would have made.  

Pain bites at his ribs.  He opens his eyes and watches as she presses the corner of the cut.  His wife is looking at him.  Accusing and sad.  “You promised you would take care of yourself.”  

“I’m trying,” John murmurs.  He feels old.  Tired.  A part of him is eager to roll over and go to sleep.  He’d barely been able to pleasure Madi tonight.  The constant thrumming thoughts of _don’t fail her_ , burning through any arousal he may have felt at the start.

She tries too, he knows.  She tries every time she slips away from the village and joins him here on the beach.  She tries when she asks Ben if he’s really okay.  When she pulls the boot from his leg and inspects his long healed scar.  When she reminds him that he needs to sleep.  When she rests beside him and whispers in his ear that it’s almost over.  Rest.   _Rest, John Silver, rest._

Despite that, John knows why she’s here.  He knows why she’s lying beside him.  Pressing against him spitefully.  Julius had made a public display.  He’d formally declared his intentions toward Madi.  He’d done so in front of the Queen, the village, John...just returning after a raid.  John had stood paralyzed and watched as Madi had been forced to acknowledge Julius’ intentions.  There’d be no point in pretending Julius was just a nuisance anymore.  No waiting for things to get better.

A shiver tingles up John’s spine and he wonders if this really is the end.  The punishment that he deserved for lying to her so long ago.  He said he’d wait forever, but if waiting forever meant watching her marry someone else...he’s not sure he can keep his promise.  Not sure if he can be the secret on the side. The one she visits at night when she wants something wild and dangerous and not Julius.

He’s under no illusions that she actually _cares_ for the man.  Julius is a flawless representation of the exact person Madi _doesn’t_ appreciate.  While he’s sturdy and loyal to his convictions, he prioritizes the good of the few over the benefit of the many.  He commands respect through shows of violence.  He is sharp with his words, and quick with his fists.  Madi and John have watched him beat men for betraying his trust.  For failing to please him appropriately.  

John has done much the same at one point or another, but where his men were desperate to earn his love and forgiveness in the end...Julius’ are frightened of his continued wrath.  The difference wrinkles Madi’s nose.  Turns her attention from pleasant to sour.  

And yet, there’s far too many people who find Julius to be relatable.  Madi is their ideal.  Their princess turned Queen who is unaffected by the touch of the lash, the pain of hunger, or the mire of despair.  She is brave and good and true.  Highly educated and properly trained.  Julius is their reality.  He is the man who lived through the darkness and is a force of passion they know.  He cast off his shackles and he overthrew his oppressors with his own hands.  His knowledge comes from the soil, his strength from within.  The people look to him for guidance, because they see themselves in him.

The incompatibilities of their personalities does not matter.  Only the dream of a perfect union.  No one cares that Julius tore the pages from one of Madi’s books to light a fire, and was shocked by her ire.  No one cares that Julius became offended at Madi’s suggestion that he make peace with the pirates in a more long lasting manner.  They care only about the dream.

The dream that ignores how Madi likes to make faces.  How she enjoys being silly and teasing.  How she’d tried it only once with Julius and he’d stared at her uncomprehendingly while John snickered behind his back.  Sharing in one of the rare blissful moments they’d encountered since the war ended.

Madi shifts her weight, and John watches as she sits up.  Her hair falls down her back.  The locks just as perfect as they were before.  He loves her hair.  Loves feeling it.  When she lets him, he plays with each tightly woven lock.  Moving them this way and that.  Making them dance.  She scrunches her nose up at him and shakes her head after a while.  Elongating his name in exasperation.  He doesn’t touch them now.  Just watches as she reaches for her dress.

It’s a quiet parting.  

They usually are.

She takes her time.  Pulling it on and adjusting it until it sets properly.  He feels cold.  Skin chilling as he watches her take her leave.  He doesn’t want her to go.  Doesn’t want to take it to heart she’s only come here in case Julius had any delusions of approaching her tonight.  But it’s how he feels.  Invalidated _and_ invalided.  She fucked him with his hands clinging tightly to the bed.  Not touching her back on her order.  She rode him, and looked down her nose at him, and his breath had stuttered in his throat and he’d not dared to cry out.

She whispered she loved him.  She thanked him.  She… “I could read to you?” he asks her.  She’s pulling her shoes on.  Preparing herself for the long walk back to the village.  Hands sleeps not far from John’s hut.  A quiet yet deadly presence promising death to those who would bother him.  He’s the only one in the village who knows that Madi fucks John like this.  He’s the only one that John trusts to escort her back to her home when she’s done.

John's copy of _The Canterbury Tales_ isn’t as nice as the one that Thomas has.  The pages are worn with splash damage.  The ink blotchy through most of the beginning prologue.  The back cover is stained with something unmentionable.  There are no drawings or inscriptions.  John had seen it in a puddle on the floor of a man’s cabin after a raid.  He’d laughed when he saw it.  Thoroughly convinced that until he’d met Thomas he’d never seen the book in his life.  But now it seems to appear every other month.  A reminder of what he’d left behind.  

The look Israel gave him when he saw the book that day had been chilling.  John still brought it home.  Has it resting beside his bed.  He reads it when he thinks about Thomas or Flint.  When he thinks about how nice it would be to see them again.  Flint’s offer to let him stay whenever he wanted to.

Madi kisses him.

John blinks.  He hadn’t been expecting it.  But she’s gone before he can respond.  Guilt festers in the cruelest way.  He watches her pull back, and he tries to form words.  She looks sad.  Sad and tired.  His tongue is laden with empty promises.  He can’t help her if she won’t let him.

“Tomorrow, I will speak to my mother.  Make my intentions on Julius quite clear.”  John’s heart pounds in his chest.  He feels like he can’t breathe.  The pressure is too great.  His head swims with possibilities, and all he can do is clench the blanket and hope it doesn’t tear.  “I wish for you to return to the village.  To be with me there as I speak to my mother.  If you were to make your case, then I believe she can be swayed.”  

John’s not sure he can breathe.  His head swims.  His lips part.  “Your people...don’t care much for my presence.”

“I will not marry that man,” Madi all but spits out.  It’s rare she lets emotion filter into her words.  She’s wonderful at maintaining her sense of calm at all times.  However, she lets that armor fall free when she’s with him.  She offers a side of herself that is filled with passion, of heart.  She looks at John and expects him to say something.  He can only stare at her.  

His heart hurts.

Outside, waves splash against the sand.  Wind rustles the trees.  There’s a crackling of a fire pit.  Israel’s probably cooking something he caught.  Fish, or turtle maybe.  On very rare occasions John will join him at that pit.  Sit with him and share a bottle of rum.  Israel doesn’t make a good friend, nor a charming companion.  He’s rough and hard in ways John struggles to compensate for.  The effort he must maintain to engage with Israel is often more trouble than it’s worth.  But keeping Israel loyal is important.  He doesn’t want the man for an enemy.

Thoughts whisp by John like leaves in the wind.  He tries to pull himself together, but he’s too tired.  To worn out.  “Why not?”  he asks.  Madi’s face isn’t nice when she’s startled.  She recoils from him and he knows he’s made an error.  He can’t help it though.  He’s tired.  He once promised her forever.

If he fails her, it won’t be the last broken promise he made.  Of that he’s certain.  “Why not?” Madi repeats slowly.  It’s as almost as if she’s never considered it herself.  Just known that the answer would be ‘no’ and moved on.  In a way, he’s pleased that she’s honoring their marriage like that.  But if that’s the only reason...it’s not good enough.    

He stabs the wound with a needle, just to watch the pus flow. “Your priority is your people,” John reminds.  “They want him to be your husband.  Someone they believe in.  Someone they trust.  Someone who keeps their promises and their oaths.”  Someone who doesn’t dig up fortunes meant to keep them in harmony and peace, just to lose it in hopes of saving one life.  Even if it’s _hers_.

John set the table for Julius to rise.  This is the price he must pay for that as well.  

His wife stares at him.  She’s looking through him.  Seeing all of him.  He cannot meet her gaze.  He’s so tired.  He feels like he hasn’t slept in years, and yet Israel must drag him from his cot each day.  Shouting at him.  Telling him to wake up, get moving.  Ordering him to plan their next steps.   _Some King you are,_ he’ll hiss, slapping John’s face as he tells him to at least _pretend_ to be worthy of the Queen he claims to love.

“My anger at you….does not invalidate my affection for you,” Madi tells him.  He isn’t sure he believes he.  After all.  She’s leaving. 

“Can I read to you?” he asks her again, because he doesn’t want to talk about this.  He doesn’t want to pretend that this is okay.  He doesn’t want to...he doesn’t know what he wants.   There are levels to darkness, he knows now.  One that leads to violence and aggression and the joy that tearing the world apart with your bare hands brings.  The other leads to stagnation and endless tunnels absent of light.  Madi had led him valiantly through the first, but he abandoned her long ago to fall headlong down the second.  

She can’t reach him here.

Someone else had started to, but Israel had been right when he’d reminded John that Thomas and James were a fantasy.  An ideal that _he_ longs to aspire to.  A compartmentalized unit that stands alone from him and exists without him.  He’d made Madi a promise for forever, and Israel had been right.  Forever does not include running away to Savannah every time it felt like the world was caving in on itself.

Forever meant standing fast, digging his feet into the sand, and becoming a pillar of strength that Madi can depend on.  Even if the fundamental trouble with sand always remain true; the foundation will shift and eventually...it will crumble.

Madi shakes her head.  She apologizes.  She tells him she needs to return to the village.  So he nods.  He goes to leverage himself up to stand and see her out properly, but she pushes him back down.  “You needn’t bother,” she tells him.  She meant it as a kindness, but all John can think of is that Julius would managed.  Julius would have turned her in bed the way she wanted.  Would have propped her up and pressed into her the way she deserved.  

She kisses him again.  He twists away in shame.  Doesn’t look up to see how she’s reacting to his failure.  He doesn’t _want_ to know.  Her hands fall away.  She says nothing as she steps from his hut.  Down onto the beach.  Israel sees her and John can hear him approach.  They exchange soft words, and then the pair of them return to the village together.  Israel always sees her off at her door.

Throwing himself back onto his cot, John presses the backs of his hands to his eyes.  His breaths stutter and he feels a swell of...something within him.  His very skin feels like it’s been rubbed raw from the sand.  He is hot and sweaty and everything feels awful and wrong.  He’d not wanted to tell Madi of his physical pains.  Had not wanted to worry her, or cause her to fear for his health.  Had not wanted to appear weak to her.

Laughable, considering how their partnership started.  He feels tears press against his eyes, and tries not to think Thomas’ ruddy bookshop.  Tries not to think about the warm crackle of a fire and the quiet sounds of Thomas working.  Tries not to think about Flint’s hand on his shoulder, waking him and telling him to come to eat.  Of happy discussion around a table.  

Of family.

The pain in John’s chest grows and he tries to hiss through it.  Tries to pretend that he’ll be all right.  Tries to—

The hanging cloth that serves as a door to his hut is pushed aside.  John sits up.  Expecting an argument with Hands that comes far too soon.  He shifts anger to hide his exhaustion.  He channels the pain into ire.  It doesn’t do him any good.  Billy Bones is aiming a gun at his head.  

 _Oh._ John thinks.   _This is how it ends._

Billy tells him that they’re going to Skeleton Island.  That they’re going to find Flint’s treasure, and that John is going to help him.  John has to stand in front of the Queen tomorrow to make his case for Madi’s hand.  Billy takes a step forward.  “Get dressed,” he orders.  John stares at the gun.  It would be so easy...to just….

He rolls over.  Reaches for his crutch and uses it to help him stand.  He hasn’t been ashamed of his nakedness in years.  Billy doesn’t even seem to notice.  One hobbling step toward his clothes, and that’s all he needs.  John presses his weight down on his right leg and pivots, swinging the crutch so it crashes against Billy’s hand.  The gun doesn’t fire, Billy’s finger wasn’t on the trigger.  But it does go clattering to the ground.

John lunges with the crutch, trying to bring it about to smash into Billy’s head.  He’d almost managed it too, but the arc was too great.  His balance is thwarted, and before John can catch himself, he’s falling.  

The last thing he remembers before his head snaps against the bed is Billy’s startled face watching him with a mix of shock and interest towering above him.  Then the world goes black, and John has a haphazard thought of _sleep is nice,_ before everything ended with a quiet crack that sounds like his heart is breaking.

***

John doesn’t like Skeleton Island.  Doesn’t like the smell of it, the feel of it, the taste of the air.  There’s a sulfuric odor that permeates everything.  Something husky and volcanic that irritates John’s nostrils and upsets his stomach.  

Billy doesn’t care for his opinions.  Mainly because he keeps John gagged from the moment he wakes up on Billy’s piragua to the moment they reach the island.  John’s mouth has gone dry from dehydration, his stomach is cramping for need of food.  Billy hauls John out onto the beach and all but throws him on the ground.  

With his hands bound behind his back, John’s shoulder takes the brunt of the force.  It jars the bones into his socket and he grinds down on the cloth in his mouth.  Still, gratitude comes first when Billy eventually removes it.  Untying the strip and tossing it to the right.  He’s too weak to actually manage a _thank you,_ but he mouths the words anyway.  Trembling and meek.

They’re ignored.  A canteen is brought to John’s mouth.  Cool liquid trickles over John’s lips.  It’s poured too quickly, but John swallows as best he can.  Mouthful after mouthful, until he can only manage to choke around it.  Chest heaving.  Nausea fills his body as his head spins.  Too much too fast.  Billy slows down and pulls the canteen away.  It’s like God removing his favor from the world.  John very nearly weeps.

“This is what’s going to happen,” Billy tells John.  He’s petting John’s hair.  Intentionally grazing the cut on John’s head from where he’d stupidly bashed it against his cot.  Pain digs in behind John’s eyes.  His vision whites a little and he mewls.  He doesn’t like pain.  “You’re going to tell me where that fucking chest is, and then I’ll take you home.”

It doesn’t matter if John goes home now or not.  It’s been more than a day.  Madi’s already needed to stand before the Queen, and in the wake of their discussion from the last night he saw her...his wife has more than likely been betrothed to Julius.  Their marriage rejected in light of his absence.   _What does it matter?_

Forever didn’t account for willful departure.  

John’s head spins.  

“Listen to me, Silver,” Billy orders.  It’s far too hard to open his eyes.  To look at Billy and to try to give a damn about the treasure.  “Tell me where Flint is.”

Lying here, on the beach, with the whole world shaken from its timber, John does the only thing he’s physically capable of doing.  He leans over and he vomits the water he just drank right on Billy’s shoes.  It earns him a harsh shove backwards, and a mouthful of dirt.  His consciousness fails him once more, and he wonders if this time, he’ll even wake up.

***

The rules are simple.  

Or at least, Billy explains them in a simple way after John’s head stops spinning from pain and his eyes stop rolling about.  Someone on Billy’s crew had managed to convince him that John would be no good as an addled twit.  If John had any good-will left within him he’d bother to remember who it was.  As it is, he’s already decided that every single person who helped Billy do this is going to die.

The paths to darkness may have different trails, but John finds that removing Madi’s presence entirely leads him swiftly toward the one drenched in violence.  Billy’s made it so Madi cannot be his tether any longer, and that on its own is enough for John to burn the world to the ground.

His fingers shake with the need to wrap around Billy’s throat.  His temper flares merely at the thought of existing in his presence.  John wants to kill this man, kill every single person who had anything at all to do with this—

“—When you left me on this island, all alone, for _years_ , do you know what I thought of?”  Billy crouches over John and gets in so very close.  John feels his lips curl into a snarl.

“Betraying your brothers to Woodes Rogers?  Shooting your men as they struggled to swim to shore like the mutineering bastard you are?” The response didn’t earn him a strike.  It didn’t earn him anything except an exasperated huff.  John forgot that Billy knows him well.  That Billy had been his ally once.  His friend.

“No,” Billy tells him.  Far too calm.  Far too pleased with himself.  “I thought about that day when we were in Eleanor Guthrie’s office.  When you said you’d say anything to make the pain stop.”  John almost laughs.  His life is pain.  His life has been pain from the moment Howell cut off his leg when he begged them to stop.  Just let him die.  Please just let him die.  Billy threatening him with pain now is almost absurd.  There is nothing left for him to be afraid of in that regard.  “But it wasn’t true, was it?”

Billy unties John’s hands.  He stands up, and he strides several feet away.  Picking something up from his longboat and returning.  He tosses it at John, and John stares at the boot and pegged leg he’s been offered.  It’s not his.  John doesn’t even know where _his_ ended up.

“You don’t care about pain,” Billy tells him, forcing John’s eyes to lift.  Meet his directly.  “You just don’t want to be left alone.  Scared little orphan John Silver.  I spent years on this island.  How long do you think it’ll take you?”   

John’s teeth ache.  His stomach clenches.  His body feels weak and incapable.  “Take me?”  

“To tell me where Flint is.  Now, I know you don’t know where the chest is.  You’d already have been back here and taking it for yourself if you did.  But you know where _he_ is.  I know, because everyone _knows_ you know.  But you don’t tell anyone, and seeing as how he’s the only one who _does_ know where that fucking chest is, well.  Here we are.”

Billy smiles at him.  He almost looks fond.  John is tempted to throw the pegged leg at his face and see how fond he looks then.  He doesn’t bother.  “Here’s what’s going to happen.  You’re going to tell me where Flint is.  If you don’t, then I’m going to leave, and you’re going to go out there and find my chest.  You’re going to dig it up, and bring it to the beach.  You do that, and I’ll bring you home to your life and whatever counts as a relationship between the two of you.  You don’t, and I’ll leave again.  And again.  And again.  And you can stay here by yourself until the day you die.  And when you die, I’ll put Madi on this island.  Your pathetic crew.  Every single person you have seen or spoken to in the last five years.  And one of them will tell me.  Or all of them will die, on this island, alone.  And no one will ever know where they are.”

Billy looks down at John, and John looks up at Billy.  “Where’s Flint?”  Billy asks.

John doesn’t say a damn thing, and so he watches as Billy gets into his longboat, and rows away.  The piragua’s out of sight before John even thinks to crawl toward the leg and inspect it.  It’s the wrong size.  Completely useless, nearly a foot too long and rough abrasive wood on the inside that would tear his stump to shreds if he tried to wear it.

Night starts to fall, and John shivers.  He needs to find food.  Water.  Anything else.  

Instead, he just curls on his side, and goes to sleep.

***

The first two weeks passed with mixes of blood, sweat, and agony.  John struggled to make a crutch out of sticks and branches.  Most snapping under his weight after prolonged use.  Food hadn’t been necessarily _hard_ to find, but rather it had been inconvenient to gather.  Fish thrived in the shallows, but spearing them and bringing his catches to shore to cook sent him to his knees more often than not.  Balance shattered.

His hands had callouses from years at sea, and so they never bothered him.  But his muscles strained at his lack of rest.  His vision blurred from his lack of sleep.  He felt himself crying at odd measures, and then stopping just as abruptly.  Staring out at the water and wondering just what the hell he was meant to do.

The first two weeks had been filled with endless silence.  The cry of birds intermittently drowning and absent.  John didn’t dig for the chest once.  He dedicated himself to being as obstinate as possible, and when he catches sight of the the piragua returning, he tries to tell himself that the feeling in his chest is one of prideful spite, and not desperate gratitude.

He doesn’t ask himself why he’s situated in plain view on the beach.  Why he hasn’t made Billy come after him in the woods, force him to find John and put some effort into it.  He convinces himself that he’s doing this because if, by chance, it _isn’t_ Billy—someone else will be there and they will see him.  They’ll either kill him or help him, and he isn’t even sure which one he wants at the moment.

Billy looks at him, looks at the lack of chest, and smiles.  He reaches out and cups John’s cheek.  It’s almost tender.  “Where’s Flint?” he asks.  

“Tortuga,” John lies.  It’s an obvious lie too.  One that earns him a sharp slap across his face and sends him teetering into the the sand.  His hair flies all around, tangling into knots that will take him hours to sort through.  

Managing curls took time and effort and more often than not John played with each spiral from dawn until dusk.  Running his fingers through it, sorting the mess.  Tying his bangs back to keep them from his face.  Flint used to catch him at it with obsessive regularity.  Keen-eyes flicking his direction.  Grinning like a maniac, thinking all kinds of thoughts John was sure.

Sand in his hair took hours to set right.  It created an absurd amount of grit and grime that latched on and never let it go.  John lays in the sand for a moment, staring at his hair.  Then he finds the urge to laugh bubble up in his chest.  He lets it go, and lets it carry through him.  

Billy hauls him upright.  Leans him against a tree.  He crouches over John and smiles at him serenely.  “You think I’m going to tell you where Flint is?” John asks.

“Why wouldn’t you?  You want to be there to stop your wife from fucking Julius, don’t you?”  John’s laughter dies in an instant.  Billy’s far too amused.  He’s pleased as can be, and John doesn’t know what to say.  He’s half tempted to say something awful, but the words die on his throat.  “Got a look at her the other day,” Billy confides.  “You been gone less than a month and she hardly seemed to notice.  Not too fond of you is she?  Does she blame you for your war?”

Punching Billy in the face had seemed worth it at the time.  The satisfying crunch of Billy’s bones beneath John’s fist giving him a truly wonderful feeling of elation at the time.  Then Billy took him by his hair, and dragged him to the water.  His stump digging into the ground in _agony._  Even to this day, touching it wrong can send curves of pain through his body.

He takes a startled gasp in, and then Billy shoves his head into the channel.  Water fills John’s ears, his nose, his mouth.  He coughs.  Flails.  Tries to get his hands up.  Tries to push Billy back.  He can’t get his leg underneath him.  Can’t brace himself properly.  Billy pulls him up.  “Now, are you going to do that again?” Billy asks.  John looks him in the eye, and punches him in the knee.  

He’s released on instinct, and with that freedom, he kicks off the ground.  Swimming with one leg is awkward and difficult.  But John will be damned if he doesn’t make an attempt.  It ends as well as he expects, with Billy dragging him back toward the shore and shoving him under the water once more.  

But John’s willing to accept the punishment.  Billy’s irritation is far too amusing to ignore.  He’s thrown back up onto the beach eventually.  Coughing and gasping for air.  His lungs ache badly, and his muscles are more sore than they’ve been in a long while.  Billy crouches over him, puts a hand to his hair and gives his head a firm shake to ensure John’s paying proper attention.  

Blinking blearily, John meets the man’s eyes.  “I’ll be back in a few weeks, if you’re not on this beach, if you make me look for you, I’ll turn around and leave.  I won’t even tell you the goings on of the world you left behind.  If you end up killing yourself out here, then the next person I bring is going to be your wife.  Maybe she’ll tell me where Flint is.  Hm?”  There’s nothing John can say to that.  Though he half hopes that Billy _does_ try to go for Madi.  

Israel will kill him dead, and then it won’t matter if no one finds John at all.  Madi and Captain Flint and Thomas will all be safe.  Still, the irony isn’t lost on him at all.  He promised Madi he’d wait forever on the beach until he earned her forgiveness, and here he lays.  Waiting forever to ensure her safety.  He starts laughing, and he doesn’t stop until the sun slips quietly from the sky.  

***

Billy comes every two to three weeks.  

Days slip from John as he wanders the island.  He doesn’t bother trying to dig for anything.  But he does get himself into trouble standing on the hill he held a gun at Flint and begged him to leave the island with him.  He stands there, staring at the boulder Flint sat on, and he feels his head swimming with emotion.  Tears prick at his eyes and he sits by it for a long time.  

There are no natural predators on the island.  Not unless you count the ants.  John half thinks one _should_ count the ants, considering how viciously they bite.  He’s slept on more than a few ant colonies, forced to awaken at the feeling of being eaten alive.  They’re not the only insects who have deemed him an unacceptable part of their island.  He’s covered in bites from mosquitos and all manner of insects.  Spiders and gnats offering their opinion on the subject as well.  

He’s managed to avoid the bees, though that’s primarily due to the fact that he hears them swarming and avoids them entirely.  He never cared for honey before, and he has no desire to bother them now.  Billy, of course, finds his aversion hilarious.  

He arrives on the island with minimal fanfare, and it takes John time to make the trek from wherever he’s gone to the beach.  There’s no logic to Billy’s arrivals, and so John cannot anticipate when he’s supposed to be there.  His crutches break constantly beneath his weight, and once he’d needed to drag himself the final few yards.  

“I gave you the boot for a reason,” Billy tells him good naturedly.  

“It doesn’t fit,” John argues back, voice scratchy and weak.  Hoarse from disuse.  His throat burns at the effort. He can’t remember the last time he had stayed this quiet.  He doesn’t like it.  Doesn’t like listening to the wind in the trees or as it kicks off the waves.  Doesn’t like pretending that it’s satisfactory.  

Something must show on his face, because Billy only grins wider.  He’s kind enough to tend to whatever basic injury John’s managed to acquire.  He even gives John food, though John’s stomach rebels more often than not.  Head spinning from the sudden additions to his diet that don’t quite belong.  “You’re lucky,” Billy reminds him.  “I didn’t have anyone bringing me pig.”

“You didn’t deserve any,” John tells him.  Billy’s brows raise.  He looks at John like a parent does to their misbehaving child.

“Where’s Flint?” Billy asks.  John doesn’t bother to lie.  Billy’s smile grows.  John doesn’t remember him smiling this much before. Maybe all his time alone finally taught him a sense of humor, no matter how twisted it was.  “Where’s my chest?”  When John still doesn’t say anything, Billy reaches for the food he offered him.  He pulls it back, ruffling John’s hair as he stands.  

 _He’s amused,_ John realizes blankly as he watches Billy depart.  He gets into the longboat and rows back to his piragua.  He doesn’t say when he’ll return, and John tries to tell himself he doesn’t care.  That Billy could be gone forever and it won’t matter.  But there’s no reason for Billy _not_ to bring Madi here.  No reason to not recreate the whole scenario from scratch.  Holding on to Madi and working John against Flint in order to get what he wants.  

“Why don’t you tell him?” Thomas asks, and John stares at the vision Thomas makes sitting on the beach with a book in his lap looking for all the world like he belongs.

“You’re not real,” John declares.  Thomas turns the page of his book, but glances over at him.   _Obviously._

Well.

At least he’s not alone anymore.

***

Thomas doesn’t go away.  He lurks at the corner of John’s vision like a particularly fantastical puppy.  Sometimes the vision grows more detail than John thinks is strictly appropriate, but he decides not to question it anymore than he has to.  Thomas, his workbench, a few books that John can’t read because they’re not real and even _his_ brain isn’t clever enough to come up with a whole novel on its own, sit with him on the beach as John tries to work out of this means he’s officially gone mad or not.

Of all the people John’s hallucinated in the past, John’s not entirely sure why Thomas happened to be here now.  He used to see all manner of interlopers before.  Clergymen and angry shrews.  Opium never sat well with him and he doesn’t enjoy playing with it for that very reason.  Thomas is the first nice vision he’s had though.

He assumes the vision will be nice, at least.  Thomas has never been anything _but_ nice to him, so John doesn’t want to spoil it with a terrible dream.  Thankfully, his brain is at least kind in that regard.  Thomas looks at him over the pages of whatever book his brain decided he should be fixing up today, and smiles that far too pleasant smile.

“Shall I read to you?” Thomas asks.  John doesn’t see any harm in it.  So he lays his head on Thomas’ lap, somewhat certain it’s actually a moss covered stump, and he lets Thomas read to him.  It’s _The Prioress’ Tale._

Highly anti-semitic and barbaric from start to finish, John and Thomas had discussed it at length once.  Replacing any mention of Judaism to England, to Christianity to the Pirates.  He inserts James into the tale as well, and John sees the correlation so profoundly he hadn’t been able to tear his eyes from his Captain at all.   _It’s a tale of the frightened trying to encourage their children to remain frightened and hateful against people they don’t understand,_ Thomas had murmured in his ear.  James had reached out and kissed Thomas’ brow.  

John never understood how something so pure had been constantly torn to shreds all in the name of glory and righteousness.  John has watched wives beaten by their husbands.  He has seen children raped by their parents.  He has seen clergy thieve and barter with the purses and souls of their flock.  And yet something as genuinely true and touching as _love_ could be cast aside as wrong.

“Why are people afraid?” John whispers as Thomas recites lines from the book.  John wonders at what he once was. What he would have been if his world hadn’t torn away any thoughts of faith and morality so long ago.  He imagines Thomas’s fingers in his hair.  Sometimes he’ll pet back the locks on John’s head.  Fix the curls where they tangle too badly.  Sometimes he’ll just drape a blanket along John’s shoulders and leave him be, telling him that he’ll be all right.  Just rest.

It’ll be all right.

“Of what?”  Thomas’s fantasy asks him.  John doesn’t know.  He doesn’t even know why he’s bothering.  He’s sore and tired, and he wants to sleep, but he’s lonely, and Thomas is here.  Somewhat.  It’s a good dream

He reaches his own hand up and plays with his hair, staring out at the rotted bark of an old tree well past its prime.  It’s nice pretending.  Thomas lets him pretend as long as he likes, and John only feels somewhat guilty that he’s perverting his Captain’s partner like this.  Claiming this man’s attention, however fantasized, and directing it as _his._ Thomas is Flint’s.  He’s Thomas McGraw now.  John shouldn’t be doing this.

Guilt refuses to muster in his chest.  It remains dormant, and John embraces the feeling of Thomas sitting beside him.  “I imagine people become afraid because they don’t want to face pain.  It’s a survival instinct.  Guiding us away from disaster.”  Thomas’ hand feels so nice against John’s hair.  Settling everything just so.  John’s stomach growls.  He hadn’t felt the strength to fetch fish.  To do anything, really.  

'“That serpent known as Satan,”' Thomas murmurs.  He bends over John’s body.  Keeping him warm.  '“...Our first foe, who has his wasp's nest in the... _monarchy’s_ heart, swelled up and said, "O English people! Woe!  Is this a thing of honor for your part, that such a boy should walk at will, and start to sing out as he's walking such offense to spite you, for your laws no reverence?"'

Lips touch John’s brow and he sighs.  Imagines the wood beneath him to shift into something more comfortable. A horsehair bed.  A down blanket.  Arms around him.  Madi, too.  Smiling down at him while his Captain welcomes him home.  Thomas reading him his altered text.  

 

> “Thenceforth the English proceeded to conspire,  
>  Out of this world this child to chase;  
>  They found themselves a murderer for hire,  
>  Who in an alley took his hidden place;  
>  And as the child passed at his daily pace,  
>  This curséd man grabbed hold of him and slit  
>  His throat, and cast him down into a pit.  
>  Into a privy place, I say, they threw  
>  Him, where these seemingly good men would purge their bowels. Wail,  
>  O the curséd Englishmen anew!  
>  Your ill intent shall be of what avail?  
>  Murder will out, for sure, it will not fail;  
>  That God's honor increase, and men may heed,  
>  The blood cries out upon your curséd deed.”

 

“You’re comparing piracy to an innocent child getting murdered,” John whispers.  

“They hung men for crimes that they did not understand, after putting men in positions where crime was all they had.  They forced the choices to be made, then punished those who needed their assistance the most.  My comparison is apt.”  Thomas is difficult to argue with.  “John?” Thomas asks. “Are you going to let him kill you?”

“I’m no innocent,” John replies.

“Oh...well. _I_ don’t want you to die at least,” Thomas tells him.  It’s entirely self serving for John’s own hallucination to argue for John’s survival, but it feels nice all the same.  He goes to sleep pretending Thomas is still reading to him, and when he wakes up, Thomas is sitting by the useless boot and pegged leg.  John may not be able to use it for walking, but the peg has a hook on it that’s useful for other things.  

With a great sigh, John crawls to the boot, finds himself yet another crutch he hopes won’t break as fast, and then drags himself into the woods.  Searching for a lost treasure he doesn’t give a damn about.  It’s been nearly three months, and finally he starts digging.  

 

He doesn’t find the chest.

***

John’s fairly certain that Billy doesn’t even really _want_ the chest.  By the fourth month, his visits are confusing and unhelpful.  He doesn’t push John to tell him where Flint is.  He doesn’t threaten Madi or the others.  He just comes, asks him the location, inspects John’s filthy hands from where he’d dug and dug for weeks to no avail, and smiles at John.  Pats his head.  Like that’s what he wanted to do the whole time.

Like he’s enjoying the thought that John’s been trying to find the chest for him, and knows he never well.  It’s punishment, John knows.  Punishment and revenge.  John should consider himself lucky that Billy keeps coming back.  That he didn’t just leave John here by himself for years to suffer alone.  

“Madi’s set to marry Julius in the fall,” Billy informs him.  John's own personal Solomon Little.  He takes John’s hands and washes the blood and dirt from beneath his fingers.  He wraps them with fresh linen.  Brings John bread that tastes like salt, and stew that is not nearly salty enough.  

John’s fingers tremble in Billy’s grasp.  The only one he’s spoken to since arriving on this island is himself, _Thomas_ doesn’t count since _Thomas_ isn’t real.  Words feel awkward and stilted and John wants to use them, but when he opens his mouth, Billy squeezes tight on his hand.  “Unless you’re going to tell me where Flint is, I don’t want to hear a word from you.  Are we understood?”  

“It’s because he knows you can talk him out of this,” Thomas tells him from behind Billy’s left shoulder.  John stares at Billy, and keeps his mouth shut.

“Tell you what,” Billy leans in.  He’s still squeezing John’s hand.  It hurts.  John stares back at him, and thinks of Thomas’ book shop.  Thinks of James working in the farm.  Thinks of how Captain Flint is unmade and James McGraw is in his place.  “Tell me where Flint is, and I’ll bring you back to the Camp and let you stop her from marrying that piece of shit.”

_A day, a week, a year...forever…_

John doesn’t say anything at all.  Billy pats his head, and John _leans_ into the touch.  Recoiling the moment he realizes what he’d done.  Billy’s smiling though, benediction already granted.  He stands up and walks away, leaving John alone on the beach.   

***

Sometime around month five, John’s given up pretending he isn’t desperate for conversation.  He gives up trying to pretend he doesn’t like Billy’s pats on his head.  He gives up ignoring the fact that he _could_ hide out in the woods, but the _thought_ of Billy standing on the beach and deciding to leave without saying a word is too terrifying for John to bear.  

Thomas tells him it’s all right.  He understands.  He’s been there before.

John tells Thomas he’s not real, he doesn’t know anything, and to go fuck himself.  When Billy comes to see him again, far sooner than John had expected, John is almost trembling with the relief of it all.  Billy doesn’t want to hear him speak, but words tumble out in any case.  “I looked for it,” John tells Billy.  “I looked for it and I dug and I tried to find it and--”

“Where’s Flint?” Billy asks. Tears of frustration press against John’s eyes.

“I can’t _tell_ you that,” he grits out.  “I can’t _tell_ you where he is.”

“Why not?” The question catches John off guard.  He blinks at Billy.  Billy blinks back.  Waiting.  Patient.  He’s been nothing _but_ patient, and John’s head hurts trying to think about it.  Everything feels slow and unsteady, and he hurts in places he had long forgotten _could_ hurt.  Billy pats his head and smiles and asks him “Why not?” again, and John’s struggling to keep track of the reasons.

Thomas coughs behind Billy’s shoulder, and John stares at him.  Stares at him long enough that even Billy turns to look at someone who’s not there.  “Why can’t you tell me?”  Billy asks, and John’s too tired for this.  He looks at Billy.

“You should kill me,” he says.  He feels hollow and rung out.  A corpse at the bottom of a well, waterlogged and bloated.  

“You know what will happen next, don’t you?” Billy asks.  Madi.  Flint.  Other people brought to the island to remain here and die because he didn’t betray someone.  Everything’s getting tangled and confusing.  He can’t remember the last time the pangs of hunger didn’t dig into his stomach.  The last time his mouth didn’t feel dry from thirst.  

There’s only one good well of fresh water on this island, and it’s far away from the beach and food.  He spends his days dragging himself from the beach to the well to another place to start digging.  He hears voices and ghosts and he is eaten by insects.  He’s tired.  He’s so tired.  

“You should kill me,” he instructs Billy dully.  He can’t care about Madi if he’s dead.  But her people will be happy, she’ll be with Julius and they’ll be happy.  The war won’t start again.  Flint and Thomas will live their lives together, and isn’t that what he wanted?  Them all to be happy?  Everyone but him?

Thomas looks so sad as he stands next to Billy, holding their copy of _The Canterbury Tales._

But Billy doesn’t kill John.  He just pets John’s hair and then leaves him alone once again.  John wonders, vaguely, if Billy intends for John to do it himself.

“Not yet,” Thomas beseeches, and John agrees.  He’s not ready yet.  Not for that.  But soon.  Probably.  Sometime soon.

He spends the next four weeks digging.

He doesn’t make it to the beach when Billy arrives again.  He’s too exhausted to make the trip.

***

There’s a rope around John’s neck.  His hands are tied behind his back, and a gun is forced into his too weak grip.  The boot’s been shoved onto his leg and strapped down, and John’s too dizzy to work out the exact particulars of how all of this was accomplished.  “Madi’s coming,” Billy tells him as he finishes tying off the rope to something or other.  “And Flint too.  Coming to get the chest _you_ wouldn’t tell me about.”  John’s eyes are threatening to close.  His consciousness wavering.  He thinks Billy found him in the woods, and he wonders if this is punishment too.  

Billy pulls on the rope, and John’s breath leaves him in an instant.  He chokes. Scrambling to his feet, he tries to alleviate the pressure, but he’s hoisted upwards, until he’s just barely able to touch the ground.  The pegged leg, so much longer than his actual leg, is the only balance he can manage.  He needs to lean all his weight on it to stop the noose from choking him entirely.  Trading one pain for another.  

“This is what’s going to happen,” Billy says.  John’s eye level with Billy now.  That’s never happened before.  He draws in one strained breath, hears it echoing in his ears.  “They’ll come up the channel.  I know they can take my men, I know they can take me.  They’ll raze this island to the ground to get you back.  But that’s not going to help me, is it?”  

Thomas is standing behind Billy’s shoulder.  “Breathe, John,” Thomas instructs him firmly.  John breathes in.  He struggles to let it out.  His leg hurts.  It aches worse than it did all those years ago when he’d hobbled about on his first boot far too soon.  

“I’m going to walk with Flint to the chest.  Maybe you’ll be lucky and it’ll be right under your feet, but I doubt that.” John cannot hope to respond.  His fingers clench tightly around the gun he’s been given.  “When I get the chest, I’ll fire a shot in the air.  You fire that one, and then someone will be ‘round to fetch you.  I’m sure they’ll find you eventually. It’s not like I buried you underground now is it?”

 _Breathe,_ Thomas whispers in the back corner of John’s mind.  He leans more on the peg and tires to straighten his spine.  Tries to get the pressure from his throat.  “Don’t forget to fire the gun,” Billy tells him.  He’s smiling now.  Far too proud.  Then he leaves.  

John feels panic starting to rise up within him.  Terror clinging to his skin like mist in a rain storm.  His breaths are too short, too shallow.  Thomas cups his face.  Orders him to breathe, and look up.  So he does.

And then he starts working his grip on the gun.  

The rope isn’t very thick.  The branch isn’t immune to damage.  One shot.  One well placed shot and he could fall.  He could get free.  He could stop Billy from finding that chest, just to _spite_ the mother-fucker.  He could.  He could do it.

He leans hard on the peg.  He draws his breath in as best he’s able.  He bends his elbows this way and that and tries to unlock his shoulders.  Daylight fades.  Casting half formed shadows across the gnarly glen he’s been strung up in.  Thomas coaches him on his breathing, and John rather thinks he’s proud of himself.

 

 

> O the curséd Englishmen anew!  
>  Your ill intent shall be of what avail?  
>  Murder will out, for sure, it will not fail;  
>  That God's honor increase, and men may heed,  
>  The blood cries out upon your curséd deed.

 

John feels the muscles in his elbows straining.  Tears prick at his eyes, but he refuses to cry.  Not now.  Not _now._ His shoulders burn.  His head swims.  Thomas promises it’s going to be all right.  Everything’s going to be all right.  He recites lines of poetry to distract John, and John wishes he knew what the hell Thomas was getting at this time, because he doesn’t understand a fucking thing Thomas is saying.

He feels the pop in his shoulders when he finally manages to realign himself properly.  The gun still clenched tightly in his hands.  He barely manages to lean his head back enough to see what he’s doing.  The noose tightens and his leg slips out from under him.  He sways, choking badly as he scrambles to relieve the pressure from the line.  His vision is blurring.  The light is almost gone from the world.  He can’t hear anything at all now, save for his heart beat thundering in his head.

John aims the gun, he fires, and pain ignites through his arms, his neck, his head.  Something frays, strains, and breaks, and everything goes silent.

Silent, save Thomas, still reciting that line like it means something more.  

 

 _...and men may heed,  
_ _The blood cries out upon your curséd deed._

 

He thinks he's finally afraid. 

 


	6. The Pardoner's Tale

Thomas is there when John opens his eyes.  He looks different than the last time John saw him.  There’s a beard growing in, his hair seems longer.  His clothing is windswept and there’s dirt smudging his right cheek.  He’s got blood on his knuckles and he’s talking to someone in a harsh tone that John doesn’t like in the least.  It doesn’t make sense, and it’s a reality that’s too far removed from the tepid natured partner of his Captain.  

He’d say as much to Thomas directly, but it hurts to even open his mouth let alone attempt to form words.  He resolves to blink at the man owlishly instead.  Thomas is removing the rope from around his neck.  He’s hoisting John upright and cupping John’s face between his palms. Holding him in so particular a manner that John cannot work out the complexities as to how he’s doing any of this himself.

Somewhere between Thomas untying the rope around John’s wrists and hoisting John to his feet, John considers the alternative: that this Thomas is real.  Made all the more possible when he realizes the man Thomas has been arguing with since John woke up is none other than Israel Hands.  John weighs his options, considers them thoroughly, and decides he’s had quite enough of whatever this is.

He closes his eyes and wills himself back to sleep.  Happily content with the knowledge that either they’re all going to die before they get to the beach and he’ll never know how much he failed, or his rescue really had borne fruit and they’ll all be leaving safely to parts unknown.

Either way, he wants no part in it. Israel can yell at him about not making a choice later.

 

***

 

The strange thing about nightmares, is that the more terrified you are of them, the more likely they are to come true.  John’s nightmares, when they came, almost always involved someone abandoning him to a field of pain he’ll never recover from.  It involves the faces of dozens of men who called themselves his brothers, holding him down as his leg is sawed off.  Chanting the words _we’ll look out for you,_ and then vanishing just as his heart started to believe it.  They involve Madi and Flint picking up the blade and cutting his leg from his body while he screamed and begged for them to stop.

And now, lying on another ship, surrounded by faces of people he cares for, with a blade in one of their hands and his leg apparently too far gone to be saved, he finds that nightmares have an awful habit of waking you up and reminding you that reality can sometimes be far worse.  

Flint holds him down by the shoulders.  He holds his eyes and tells John to breathe.  Madi has one hand, Thomas the other.  John doesn’t know who has the knife.  Probably Hands, considering his luck.   _Breathe_ , Thomas had told him over and over again while he’d struggled not to shoot himself before he died on Billy’s noose. _Breathe,_ he’d whispered into John’s ear as the rope strangled him second by horrifying second.  “Breathe, dammit,” Flint curses in his face as pain explodes through him.  He doesn’t get a chance to see why they’re doing it.  Doesn’t even fully understand what’s going on in the first place.

It could just be another nightmare, but John doubts it.  He can’t even find the strength to scream.  His throat feels like it’s collapsing.  His eyes flutter then squeeze closed.  He wants to go back to sleep.  He wants to-- _“Breathe,”_ Flint orders, and damn it all, John does as he’s told.  He takes a breath in through his mouth and nearly chokes on it.  He smells smoke and fire, and then--

 

***

 

> "Seneca says good things undoubtedly;  
>  He said that not one difference could he find  
>  Between a man who's gone out of his mind  
>  And one who's drunk (except that madness will,            
>  In one whose nature is already ill,  
>  Be longer lasting than will drunkenness).  
>  O gluttony, so full of cursedness!  
>  O first cause of our trial and tribulation,  
>  O origin of all our souls' damnation                      
>  Till we were purchased back by blood of Christ!  
>  How dearly, I'll say briefly, it was priced,  
>  How much was paid for this depravity!  
>  Corrupt was all the world with gluttony—"
> 
>  

“—Jesus Christ _himself_ , what the bloody _hell_ are you going on about?” Israel Hands is sitting in John’s cabin on the _Elysium._ Feet propped up on John’s desk.  Tilting and teetering only very subtly.  His arms are crossed over his chest and he’s swinging a bit in and out of focus.  John’s eyes don’t _open_ necessarily.  It’s more as though they suddenly provide him with vision.  They suddenly connect to whatever path in his brain that lets him see.  Lets him make sense of this all.  

Thomas has been reading.  John recognizes the tale.   _The Pardoner’s Tale._ Thomas is not being subtle.  The man rarely is.  He does as he pleases and he doesn’t care for consequences.  No one will ever harm Thomas McGraw for as long as John lives.  He will be safe.  

“It’s poetry Mr. Hands,” Thomas replies acerbically.  He turns the page in his book.  They haven’t noticed John is awake.  He doesn’t mind.  Everything feels like it’s floating.  Dreamlike and lovely.  “Surely you’ve heard of poetry before.”

“I’ve heard of shit fuckers like you being interested in such things, yeah.” If he’s expecting Thomas to be upset or annoyed, then he’s mistaken.  Thomas merely turns his page, and continues reading the tale.  Utterly unrepentant as he makes slight after slight against Hands under the guise that he’s reading John’s favorite book.

John drifts.  Pain swelling from missing limbs and broken bones.  His head aches badly.  Someone says something about a gash on his crown.  He can feel them washing it from time to time.  Voices sliding in and out of his consciousness.  “Who the fuck would make a deal with death?” Israel shouts at one point, clearly furious about the tale.

“Who indeed?” Thomas asks.  That’d been the point of it all.  Three wicked men all searching for buried treasure beneath a tree owned by a man named death.  All three plotting to kill the other, and all dying for the treasure.

Thomas, John thinks, is nothing if not pointed with his words.

They’re still bickering when John slips away.  Insulting one another in their own unique fashion.  When John wakes next, they’re bickering about the next tale.  Bickering about each other.  “Never did like Flint, unsurprising he’s one of _you_ people,”

“One of the people who are on the list of those whom have rendered you incapacitated in a fight?  Yes, I heard he disposed of you quite quickly on the Island all those years ago.  And tell me, how _are_ your balls these days?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Oh of course, I’m an authority it seems.  It’s my duty to make sure that the balls of this world are kept in precisely the right feelings of comfort.  I rather think I made my point clear the last time I held yours in my hand, did I not?”

John misses the reply.  

But the insulting continues.  

Fading into dreams that are both sweet and sour.  It feels like days before he can open his eyes and actually face the light for more than half a minute.  Thomas is still there, sitting beside him and reading _The Canterbury Tales_ in that soothing voice he always has. 

He looks tired.  Pale.  There are smudges beneath his eyes.  A tremble to his hand around the pages as he turns them.  Hands is gone.  This time, the vision doesn’t falter.  Doesn’t fade.  “Are you real?”  John asks.  His voice can barely be considered a whisper.  Real words don’t form, just scratches along a crusty wheeze he produces through the gaps in his teeth.

Thomas looks up and immediately sets the book to the side.  He snatches a pitcher of water off John’s desk and fills a mug with it.  Returning so quickly that John’s head is spinning.  Seeming to realize he’d done things out of order, Thomas sets the mug to the ground.  He helps John sit up.  All but dragging him into position before settling him against the wall.  John stares at him dumbly the whole time.  Even as Thomas reclaims the mug and presses it to his hands.  

John sips the water, and the water feels real at least.  Thomas talks, and John can almost pretend that this is normal for them.  Whatever _this_ is.  “You’ve been asleep for almost a week,” Thomas informs him.  It doesn’t take a week to sail from Skeleton Island to Savannah.  Nor from Skeleton Island to Madi’s home.  Nor even to Nassau.  Saying as much takes too much effort for John to bother.  He sips at his water.  It soothes some of the parchedness from his throat, but aggravates others.  “You look like hell.”

There are a thousand things that John doesn’t care about at the moment.  His appearances are one of them.  He feels out of touch with his body.  As if he’s looking at himself from afar.  His feels something wet touch his skin and he flinches, looking down to stare at the mug his clinging two with both hands.  With both _shaking_ hands.  He’s trembling so badly that water is spilling over.  

“Your arms were dislocated when we found you,” Thomas tells him.  “Mr. Hands pushed them back into place, but he said there could be some weakness for a time.”  The information is almost meaningless, except it’s Thomas’ way of telling him the shaking isn’t in his head.  It’s not a symptom of his madness, but rather a real problem with a physical cause.  Gratitude spills over, but is quickly replaced by something else.

He’d made the mistake of letting his eyes travel from his shaking hands to the far more lethal injury he’d received.  There’s a large gap where the remains of his left leg should be.  More water spills over, and the mug is pulled from his lax grasp. Replaced with Thomas’ right hand.  He lets John grab onto it even as he shifts to sit beside him.  One arm around John’s back, holding him to Thomas’ side.  He doesn’t try to make John look away.

Instead, he recites something.  It’s not from their book.  It’s...it’s beautiful.  Soft and sweet and so very distracting.  Beautiful in its grace.  The old sounding words, by now, a gentle embrace from times so good.  

 

> "To that spot that I in speche expoun  
>  I entred in that erber grene  
>  In Augoste in a hygh seysoun  
>  Quen corne is corven wyth crokes kene.  
>  On huyle ther perle hit trendeled doun  
>  Schadowed this wortes ful schyre and schene:  
>  Gilofre, gyngure, and gromylyoun,  
>  And pyonys powdered ay bytwene.  
>  Yif hit was semly on to sene  
>  A fayr reflayr yet fro hit flot.  
>  Ther wonys that worthyly, I wot and wene,  
>  My precious perle wythouten spot."

 John doesn’t know where Thomas’ poem is from, but he loves it on instinct.  His breath stills in his chest until he coughs and shudders and resolutely _does not_ weep against Thomas’ side.  

That’s how his wife finds him.  That’s how Flint finds them.  

If John had any pride left he’d lose it now.  He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to remember there was a time he didn’t care if he looked weak in front of Madi, in front of Flint.  That there was a time when he didn’t have to prove anything to them.  That he could be exactly who he was.  That there’d been no shame nor irritation with living the life he intended to live.  That he simply _was._

“John,” Madi speaks his name like she’s happy to see him.  Flint says nothing at all.  His Captain waits his turn as Thomas stops reciting lines about beauty and love and grace.  The loss is something most keenly felt.  He’d wanted little more in that moment than prolonged distraction from his leg, from this new form of torment far more preferable than experiencing it all with true awareness.  But Thomas doesn’t continue.  He lets John squeeze his hand like a child seeking comfort, but he’s fallen silent in the wake of Madi’s attention.

Affection comes easy to Madi.  She moves to John’s side and she kisses him.  She presses her hand to his face, and his skin burns beneath her touch.  He stares at her.  Soaks her in.  Plots this new appearance to memory.  He wants to ask her about Julius.  He wants to forget Julius even exists.  “We had not thought you’d be awake yet,” Madi tells him.  He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say to that.  

He has a fantasy smiling and saying something charming, but he’s too tired.  He doesn’t care to bother.  The hopeful expression falls from Madi’s face and John doesn’t have any notion how he’s meant to put it back.  Failure starts to sink heavy within him.  “Billy’s gone,” Flint announces.  

It makes John look up.  Pull himself from his wife (if she’s even that anymore) and blink dully in his Captain’s direction.  “He and Ben shot it out as far as I know.  Billy either made it or he didn’t, but we didn’t look for the body.”

Gone, then, in the literal sense.  No one knows where he is.  He could still be out there.  John tries to summon rage, fear, hatred.  It’s simply too much effort to bother.  He manages a half hearted nod to show he’d heard.  Flint’s expression, unlike Madi’s, has not changed.  He’s still looking at John as though he’s a puzzle Flint intends to furrow out.  

If he manages to do so, John will be more than satisfied.  It’ll save him the effort, and maybe bring him some peace in the end.  Madi’s saying something, but John isn’t listening.  He doesn’t care anymore.  He doesn’t care about any of it.  He just wants to go to sleep.  

Closing his eyes is rude.  It’s not an appropriate thing to do.  But he lets his body slip down.  Lets his head rest on Thomas’ lap like he’d dreamed about for months.  He tells himself that it’s only temporary.  That he shouldn’t grow used to this.  That he shouldn’t want to grow used to this.  That he needs to put on the mask, step outside, and go through the motions once more.

But if he sleeps here like this, maybe he’ll wake up from a long dream or extended nightmare, and everything will be all right again.

 

***

 

Flint tells him in the morning that Madi and Julius’ impending nupitals had been the promise she’d made to secure his assistance.  Assistance, Flint informs John that came in the form of ferrying them to and from Savannah, arranging for the _Elysium_ to be where they needed it so they didn’t get stopped by the Navy, and offering much needed medical assistance.  John tried not imagining how pleased Julius must have been at the thought that even more of John’s leg had been removed.  Now he couldn’t even _pass_ for a full man, he’d never wear a boot again.  He’d be on the crutch for the rest of his life.  

“John?” His Captain touches his shoulder and John _flinches_ away from him.  He catches himself doing it and stares up at the man dumbly.  He doesn’t know what to say.  He doesn’t-- “Stay with us in Savannah.” John’s head is spinning.  He has a crew and people who depend on him.  He has Julius to worry about and he’s meant to be a King and he’s supposed to be so much more than this. “Madi’s abdicating her throne,” Flint tells him.  

 _You’ll never be enough,_ John remembers.  From fever pitched dreams and chaotic perversions of memories he tried to ignore but cannot fully abandon.  

“She’s coming with us.”

“I don’t want her to,” John says.  The words aren’t audible.  Flint’s expression turns sad.  He hasn’t heard John’s request.  If he has, he doesn’t seem to care.   He fills John a cup of water.  He presses it into John’s shaking hands, and he starts a report on something meaningless.  Announcement of Goings On Volume the Fifth.  John would weep if he had the capacity to bother.

Thomas and Madi are doing something together topside.  Hands is running his crew like they’re his.  He’s disagreeable and everyone hates him, but no one’s brave enough to challenge him.  He glares them all into submission in a way that even Flint admits to be envious of.  His unlikeable nature a stark clash with John’s general state of friendly cheer.  At least, that’s how Flint reports it all.  John doesn’t know what kind of crew Flint thinks he’s been running, but he seems to have the impression that his crew had been mollified by John knitting them scarves and worrying about their callouses.

He’s their captain, not their mother.

 _I don’t remember my mother._ John watches as Flint continues teasing him with coddling assumptions, and John wonders if that’s the sort of thought that Flint wanted from him years ago.  Did Flint want to know that John cannot recall a single moment his mother spent with him?  It could have been hours, days, months or years, and John has no vision of who she was or what she looked like.  It seemed like the sort of revelation that Flint probably wanted to know, but John couldn’t bring himself to tell Flint then and he doesn’t want to now.

The door opens somewhere around dusk.  Without a knock or a by your leave, Hands strides inside and kicks it shut with the heel of his boot.  Flint scowls at him and Hands doesn’t give a shit.  He’s got a roll of fresh bandages in one hand, and a bowl of something steaming in the other.  Salt water, most likely.  John feels his stomach churn just looking at it, and he bites his lip in advance.  

“Grow up,” Hands orders him stiffly.  Flint’s eyes narrow, and John’s almost certain he’s going to argue with the man.  He doesn’t.  Instead, he steps to the side.  Arms folded in a sulk.  There’d been a fierce discussion over the practicality of letting John keep a pant leg or not.  Some debating he should be allowed to have one for decency sake if nothing else. Hands had won in the end, arguing that decency had nothing to do with cleanliness and until John’s wound stopped festering every time he farted, he could manage without a pant leg.

That being the case, it’s a simple matter of pulling the blanket off John’s lap and squinting down at the pussing flesh.  All that remains of John’s leg is a four inch span of thigh that just barely extends past his buttock.  John doesn’t like looking at it.  Looks away to stare off toward the windows behind his desk.  Watching the sea and-- Hands’ fingers grasp him by the chin and force him to meet his eyes.  “You got a problem, _King?”_

“Let go,” John says as loudly as he can.  It’s barely more than a puff of air.  He’d have been more convincing if he’d just mouthed the words instead of shown just how utterly remarkably broken his ability to speak at the moment is.  He can feel the swelling in his throat growing worse simply by _trying_ , and Hands meets his order with a snarling huff of indignation.

“Something troubling you?” he asks.

Now is not the time, nor the place.  Israel should know better, especially with Flint so close by.  John’s Captain is towering like an avenging angel, flaming sword at the ready.  “Hands, do your job, or I will do it for you.”

“Will you now?” Israel asks.  “Going to mop up his injuries, fix all his problems.  Manage his relationship with his wife, I can see you’re quite good at _that_.”  It’s said with the seedy kind of implication that John hates.  The skin on his face feels like it’s drawing back.  Pulling away so all that’s left is a stretched outer layer of wax separating his deteriorated muscles and decaying skeleton from the world.

 _Skeleton Island,_ John thinks half hysterically.  He laughs at the idea.  At what he’s become on those shores.  The huffing breath of air drawing Israel and Flint’s attention back to him.  Flint.   _Flint._ John’s been thinking of him as his Captain all this time, but he already knew that to no longer be the case.  He already knew that Captain Flint had died on that hill.  Sitting on that boulder.  Or at least he’d died very soon after, and really time is such a fluid concept John feels justified in calling a spade a spade.  If John had unmade Flint on Skeleton Island, killing the man for all intents and purposes, turning him into a corpse, then what has John become?  

Who is he, at the end of all of this?  What name does he give to the skeletal mass that he is now?  And, looking down at his leg...he wonders what became of the rest of his limb.  Where’d they put it?  Did they toss it overboard?  Is it sinking to the bottom of the ocean now?  Is it wrapped in a cloth to be buried like a dead thing? Whatever happened to his foot in the first place?

“John?” he looks up and meets James McGraw’s eyes.  The Naval Lieutenant turned Pirate Captain turned gentleman farmer looks back.  He’s concerned.  Worried even.  His brows are furrowed, and John doesn’t have the faintest idea why.  

Then he does.

He’s still laughing.

Abruptly cutting himself off, John seals his mouth shut.  He presses his lips together like a mason stacking his bricks.  One on top of the other.  It doesn’t clear the look on James’ face.  It only serves to make his brows furrow a touch more.  His fingers rolling at his side like he wants to do _something_ with his hands, but doesn’t quite know what.  

What a tableau they make.  John and Israel and James.  All staring at one another for answers; none speaking a word until Israel suggests, “Suppose a mad King is better than no King at all,” and presses a cloth coated in salt water against John’s leg.  His back arches instinctively and his hands clench down on the bedding.  He grits his teeth and throws his head back so it bangs hard against the wall behind him.  

He misses whatever argument the reaction incited from James.  Too busy trying to keep from passing out _again._ He needs to get up to his crew.  Needs to show that he hasn’t been beaten down.  Needs to steer them someplace.  Needs to kill Julius if only because the fucking son of a bitch won’t stop pressuring Madi with his overtures.  

The cloth comes down again and John thinks he can just vaguely hear an echo of _we’ll take care of you,_ and it’s enough to have him kicking his good leg into Israel’s chest and knocking him over.  His hands are shaking hard enough that he has to wonder if they’ll ever _stop_ shaking.  James is between Israel and John and he’s shouting at Israel.  The two of them preparing to come to blows.

More voices join in, but John cannot see past James’ body and his heart is beating too fast for him to make any sense of what’s happening.  “Get out,” he wheezes.  His throat is burning.  He can feel it threatening to close up.  Choking the life out of him where the noose failed.  He squeezes his fingers even tighter around the blankets.  He feels his eyes prickle.   _“Get out.”_

Silence descends upon the room.  Everyone turns to look at him like dolls on strings.   _For fuck’s sake..._ James, Israel, Thomas, Madi, three members of John’s rigging crew, two of Madi’s personal guard and the fucking _cook_ have all clambered in to join the spectacle that is his instability.  “Unless there’s a _reason_ you all are in here, other than to assuage yourselves of whatever personal feelings you have at the moment, I’m quite certain each and _every_ one of you has a job they’re meant to be doing.”  He feels like his mouth is filling with blood.  Each word spoken tearing a wound he hadn’t known he’d had.  Hercules himself would struggle with this task, speaking amounting go a fight on a scale worthy of Hera’s petty list of torment.  

His crew disperse like he’d slapped them all.  Closing the door behind them with wide eyes and shuffling feet.  John’s nostrils flare out as he tries to draw in a good clear breath, but no matter how hard he pulls, only a small trickle of air seeps into his lungs.  His throat too mangled and bruised to cooperate properly.

Black spots are dancing a jig across his vision.  “Touch me with that cloth again,” he continues, voice growing weaker and weaker but not yet entirely being shut out, “and I’ll stab you in the eye.” It’s the most he knows he’ll be able to say.  He can’t get another word to pass his lips.

So he does the only thing he can think to do.  He reaches for the rag, dips it into Israel’s bowl himself, and shoves it onto his own leg.  Pain sparks through his body and he forces himself to ignore it.  Forces himself to tie it to an anchor and throw it into the depths of the ocean that is his conscience.  Let it slip away from him and disappear so he cannot see, nor feel, nor understand what it is any longer.  It is separate from him.  Attached only by the thinnest of lines.  Strong and ever present, but separate from who and what he is.  

Eyes pin him to the bed like gravity.  Latching onto him and holding him in place.  He washes the remains of his leg through gritted teeth.  Blood coming free, skin rubbed raw.  They’d cauterized the wound and he addresses the tender burn with the same aplomb.  Until the task is done and he is left only with the tingling, screaming echoes of incomprehensible agony that no one in this room has ever felt before.

Israel looks at him consideringly the whole while, but only when John’s finished does he dare to look up to meet Israel’s eyes.  What he sees there is something close to pride.  Affection that the man rarely offers to John and only in the most extreme of circumstances.  John meets that look with a resounding, “Fuck you,” that’s delivered with the very last vestiges of strength he harbors within him.  

It earns him a condescending pat on the head, and gives John an opportunity to steal Israel’s dagger from his leg and flip it over so it’s edge is pressed against the man’s throat.  He doesn’t have it in him to convey his threat with words.  So he does the best he can with his eyes.  Glaring at Israel with all the burning hatred he feels toward his predicament, and daring him to comment.  

 _“Your majesty,”_ Israel drawals, offering a hitching bow as he slowly works the knife from John’s hand.  He leaves the room without another word.  

John is left immobile in his wake.  Trapped on the bed with his three closest friends in far too close proximity.  His head is spinning and he’s very close to passing out once more.  But before he gives up his mind to the dark, Thomas sighs.  Mutters, “I _really_ don’t like that man,” and settles down at the foot of John’s bed with their book in his lap.  He flips to a random page, and starts reading before anyone can ask John to do or say anything else.

Relief floods through him like a blessed balm.  He carefully lowers himself back down so he’s lying flat.  James adjusts the blankets to block out the chill and Madi actually holds his hand.  John has no idea why they’re all working in tandem so well or how they ended up becoming so close in the short amount of time since he left, but he doesn’t care to think about that now.  He just wants to sleep.

And so he does just that.

 

***

 

They reach the coast by sundown.  Thomas wakes John up with a gentle hand along his side.  Smiling faintly when John does little more then blink at him.  “Do you think you’ll have the strength to make it to the longboat?” Thomas asks.  There’s a crutch nearby, and John hasn’t left his bed in days.  

James had been there to help him the last time he’d been invalided and lost his leg.  He’d not bat an eye at John’s need to relieve his body.  He’d helped him with each and every degrading act.  He did so this time as well.  Not commenting, not _looking._ Just moving in a perfunctory way that was meant to give John dignity while his body was doing the precise opposite.  

All that being said, standing and _hopping,_ because he’s not nearly delusional enough to call it walking, had been done from the tight embrace of James’ arms around his body.  Holding him steady,  hot breath against his neck.  Making his way to the longboat was something John knew he’d need to do eventually.  As would he need to somehow descend from the ship and actually _into_ longboat and onto the shore without killing himself.  

Eyeing the crutch now, John tries to project his chance and the path of least resistance.  He knows that Thomas or James, or even Hands, would carry him if he asked.  He knows they’d help him.  He also knows what that would look like to his men.  

His shoulders have healed better than his throat.  At least _that_ swelling has made it so that he can move about somewhat.  His hands still shake from time to time, but their strength has mostly returned.  He can lift his arms up.  He can swing a faint arch.

He does not know if he can press a crutch into place and apply pressure.  The pain will be indescribable.  “I can make it,” he tells Thomas in the strongest voice he can manage.  Thomas looks him over for a moment, before reaching for the crutch.  He holds it between his hands.  Running his fingers over the smooth wood.  

“When I was nine years old my father took me to his study, had one of his servants hold me down by my shoulders, and caned my feet until they bled.” John doesn’t know what to say to that.  He looks down at Thomas’ feet.  He’s wearing good sturdy boots that seem comfortable.  “The crime, of course, doesn’t matter in the end.  It’s the punishment that lingers.  The punishment that roots itself so profoundly on the mind that it can only serve to change the path the mind travels.  The road leading to the end result of one’s life, unalterably shifted from its anointed route to something far more different.”

John lifts the toes of his right up.  Arching them.  Rolling them in his boot.  He feels his bones shifting.  He wonders what his foot would look like.  Caned and bloody.  “Why are you telling me this?”

Laughter is not the reaction he’d expected, but Thomas has a musical voice.  He hums a little when he laughs, a marimba of pleasure.  “Most ask if that was the only time,” Thomas informs him.  He reaches for a stool then, dragging it over and settling it in front of John.  They sit knee to knee, and John knows they don’t have long.  They’ll need to leave soon, and John will need to stand.  To walk.  

“Was it the only time?”  The swelling on his throat is still there, but he can manage a few words.  Manage to get these out.  If the crew expects him to speak later, then he’ll need to be careful, but it’s too easy to fall into conversation with Thomas.  Thomas was there with him.  He was there and he understands and—

_It wasn’t real._

The real Thomas McGraw pulls his boot off  and shows John the sole of his foot.  There are scars crisscrossing from toe to heel. They’re dark, awful, horrible lines.  Vicious scars.  John reaches out without thinking it and touches them.  Thomas’ jaw clenches on instinct, and they’re caught.  Looking at each other.  Sins for sins.  “It’s never just one strike, no matter how much someone says it is.  And no matter how often someone tells you, behave and I won’t hurt you...it’s never true.  Small infractions are met with small punishments, larger ones met in similar fashion.  Until the pain becomes a part of who you are and you realize that there is nothing that will stop the cycle.  That all the pain in the world won’t change who he is, and who you are.”

Each scar is an infraction.  Each wound a memory.  Something that Thomas likely remembers with the same visceral clarity that John can for his own wounds.   _They are not the same._ “It hurts when you walk.”  He traces a finger along the path of the thickest of Thomas’ scars.  The muscles are rigid beneath his touch.  As stiff as stone.  It’s hurting Thomas just to let him do this.  He doesn’t _want_ this, but he’s doing it anyway.  He’s giving this to John.

_Why?_

“It does,” Thomas agrees.  He lets John trace one injury after another.  Up and down the tender flesh.  “In life, you make deals to survive.  You make a deal with God, to the kind of virtuous man you wish to be.  You make a deal with your father, to the kind of son you want to be.  You make a deal with every man, woman, and child, to the kind of life you want to live.”  Thomas’ foot slides free from John’s touch.  He returns it to his boot, and then reaches to take John’s hands.  

His thumb runs over the cuts on John’s knuckles.  They match.  John hasn’t asked yet, how Thomas earned his wounds.  He should have.  He should have asked so many questions since they found him.  But the reality of it, is that he doesn’t want to know.  Doesn’t want to think about how they found him.  How he had done nothing but wait to be hung on an island, and needed them to help him instead.  

“The promises you make, the promises you keep, those aren’t the deals I’m referring to.  Those are actions.  Some more meaningful than others.  But they don’t matter in comparison to the deal you make when you wake each day.  The deal where you tell yourself who you are, and you follow that path.  No matter who stands in your way.”

“I don’t know who I am,” the words slip free before he can stop himself.  He told Madi once that he’s not the villain she fears him to be, but he has never known the answer to that.  He will likely _never_ know the answer to that.  His throat burns, and he flinches.  Rubs at the swelling.  He’ll lose his voice again soon, but he doesn’t want that.  Not now.  Not now—

“You don’t have to,” Thomas says.  “You don’t need to know who you are, who you were, nor whatever deals you want to make now or in the future.  You are not God, John.  You’re a man, same as I.  Give yourself a small bit of credit.  You don’t need to know all the answers to life.  Nor does anyone expect you to.”

 _Everyone_ expects him to.  His crew.  Madi’s people.  All those who have been touched by his legend.  A legend he never liked nor wanted.  He had struck a balance with those around him to be what they needed and wanted.  Who they strived to touch.  He never wanted _this._  He grits his teeth and tries to get out the words.  “What...I want...it’s...it’s not what... _they_ want.”

“It’s not what my father wanted either.”  He squeezes John’s hand.  “It’s not what my schoolmasters wanted, it’s not what the people in my salons wanted.  It’s not what anyone ever wanted, except for me.  And what I wanted, I am unapologetic for.” James.  

He wanted James.  He wanted James and Miranda and a life with them.  Free from shame.   “My father caned me because he discovered a paper I had written for school.  The first of many documents he disapproved of.  Honestly, it should have been a sign for us both,” Thomas says it with such alacrity that John manages to smile back.  “He told me that under no uncertain circumstances was I to deliver that paper nor the presentation that had been asked of me.  The morning after my father caned me so hard that my feet bled for hours, I put on my shoes.  I took up my paper, and I stood in front of my peers.  I read it out loud, bleeding through my socks, and I didn’t falter once.”

“What was the paper on?” John asks.  The mental arithmetic Thomas seems to go through is almost amusing.  His eyes and head tilt upward as he considers.  

“Do you know...I cannot remember the slightest thing about it, but my father’s _face_ had been worth every moment of punishment he inflicted before and after.”  Perhaps that more than anything else eases the crease in John’s brow.  He struggles to laugh, his throat still aching.  But Thomas pulls him closer.  Puts an arm around him as his shoulders hitch.  They laugh together.  Close together and without even the slightest chance for something going astray.

Thomas helps John settle after his breath seizes in his too tight throat.  Helps him settle back down.  “Walk,” Thomas tells John.  “Don’t walk.  Prove to them you’re not weak, or don’t.  But John, it is neither your responsibility nor your curse to live a life you do not wish to live.  If you confound yourself with the desires of others, trying only to please them and never yourself, you will fail the one person who matters most.   _You.”_ Lips press gently against John's brow, stalling his fragile breath in his throat.  "The three men who died in  _The Pardoner's Tale_ died because they were always exactly who they were from the beginning.  Determined to outwit the other, and defy Death.  But Death is fate, and fate is your deal to yourself.  What do you want, John?  In this moment?  What do  _you_ want?" 

If he leaves this room in the arms of someone else, and not on his own accord, it will shake the men.  It will cast doubt into their minds.  He will lose favor.  He will be judged.  “I don’t want to be pirate.”  He doesn’t like the sea.

Thomas waits, and John looks up.  “Can you help me?”

He holds out his hand, and says, “Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thomas' Poem is a part of the famous "Pearl" poem. You can read it here: http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/stanbury-pearl
> 
> The modern english translation is something close to: 
> 
> To that spot that I in speech have reasoned,  
> I entered into that herbal green  
> In August, in a high season  
> When corn is cut with sickles keen  
> On the mound where the pearl rolls down  
> Wrapping this world full of bright and shining  
> Gillyflower, ginger, and gromwell  
> And peonies powdered everywhere  
> Yet it was seemly to be seen  
> A fair fragrance yet through it floated  
> Their noble lives, I believe and know  
> My precious pearl within I spotted.


	7. The Friar's Tale

If he’s being honest with himself, John knows full well that he had been avoiding Madi in as much as a one legged man trapped in a bed is able to avoid anyone in a captain’s cabin.  He feigned sleep when he could, he all but begged Thomas to remain at his side, reading to him over and over.  Sharing vague stories that felt nice and were easy to occupy his mind with when he wasn’t floating along in pain.

Avoiding his wife isn’t nearly as possible when they arrive back at her home.  Longboats ferrying them into the heart of the village, James and Thomas helping him into Madi’s hut.  She stands to the side and ushers them in, easing him down so he can lay on her bed.  He stares up at the thatched ceiling and he knows that this is not a place he’ll be able to stay silent for long.  

Julius makes that perfectly clear when he appears in the doorway less than a full minute after John’s been settled.  “You are alive, I see,” he comments by way of greeting.  He’s scowling at John and John is tempted to bare is teeth in response.  Sneering and snarling like a wet cat.  

“As are you,” he chooses instead.  Thomas’ hand is still around his arm from where he’d been helping him get situated.  James is hovering over them both, posture and expression far from friendly.  Madi is the closest to Julius though, and she straightens her back and tilts her head up in challenge.  

They all stand there, looking at each other expectantly until someone eventually breaks.  Julius does first.  He steps in closer, but Madi refuses to shift to give him room.  He is a hair’s breadth away from her, nearly running through her in the process.  He won’t intimidate her.  She’s seen worse.  “You are not welcome in this home,” Julius informs John firmly, over Madi's head.  “I understand you still have a structure elsewhere, a place you can heal...separate from the village and its people.”

A sharp swell of rejection clashes violently with John’s dizzying sense of grief.  He’d _known_ letting Thomas help him from the ship would end perilously for him.  He’s prepared to walk right out of here on his own if he thinks his friends would let him stand.  But he never gets the chance.  Madi tilts her head forward so she’s only inches from Julius’ face. “You have no authority to demand who I welcome into my home, Julius.”

“You are my wife!” The words break John’s rib cage open with iron hatchets, claw into the crevice where his heart resides and crush it with the force of a mallet strike.  It takes everything in his power not to sway this way or that.  To not let the sudden immobilizing dizziness viscerally tear him asunder.  Thomas’ fingers squeeze harder on his arm, and he almost misses it when Madi responds.

“I am not,” she tells him.  “I am not your _wife,_ Julius.  I will not ever _be_ your wife.  I am the Queen of these people, and I choose who I marry.  I choose whose favor I bestow upon whom.  John Silver is, and always will be my husband, and you?   _You_ are not welcome in _my_ home.”

She just needs to nod.  A short little tap of her chin that spurs her guards into action.  Stepping forward to ensure Julius leaves promptly, immediately, and with efficiency.  The roaring between John’s ears settles somewhat.  It fades into a bursting cacophony of wonder that he is simply too addled to make sense of.

But his wife looks at him, looks at James and Thomas, and asks if they can leave.  “I wish to speak to my husband alone,” she says, and as much of an ally as Thomas has become...he leaves without saying a word.  Glancing back only to smile encouragingly at John, as Madi sits on her bed beside him.

Strange things happens when you become married.  Their first night together they’d been drunk on the idea of it.   _Marriage._ Secret and hidden.  Perfect in its youthful glow and the delight they’d gifted each other.  The lay beneath the moon and they held hands in the dark.  Children of the ocean, born to the sea and berthed on dry land.  They told each other stories and they drew each other close.   _I am you and you are me, and together there is nothing we cannot do._

Madi held out her hand to him, and he held his to hers.  They swore allegiance to one another above all else, and they each took that oath to mean something different.  “We should talk,” Madi tells him.  He doesn’t know what to say.  

But she lifts her hand to his throat and feels along the bruising.  She has a delicate mirror in her home, and it’s the first time he’s caught sight of the damage himself.  His throat is wrapped in a tight ring of purple and blue, red splotches in the particularly sore spots, faded green in the others.  He really had strangled himself good and proper on that noose, and the result had very nearly been his death.

Her fingers are cool.  Her touch light.  He closes his eyes and relaxes into it.  Concentrating only on the soft pattern she draws along his swollen glands.  She doesn’t expect him to say much, he doesn’t think, but if she does he wants to be ready for whatever she wants out of this.  By now, the news of Madi’s proclamation will have started making its way through the village.  They’ll be interrupted sooner or later, though James and Thomas will likely keep guard even if Israel won’t.

John hasn’t seen the man since Thomas had carried him across the ship in full view of every single person on his crew.  He’s probably lurking about somewhere.  Either that, or he finally gave up on John entirely.  Whichever path this went, John cannot bring himself to apply much more thought on it.

“I understand why you chose to give up the war.”  Her words are carefully selected.  Recited like a pastor’s sermon.  Practiced and perfect.  He imagines her giving this speech to James or Thomas.  Working on her enunciation in a way he used to think came naturally, but learned after that she worked at constantly.  She read books outloud to make a profession out of oration.  Knowing when and how to speak.  Knowing how to hold herself to provide the most dramatic effect.  He envies her for the controlled power that flows through her, the confidence that comes from simply _knowing_ she will be listened to.  She shows no doubt.  She worked hard to get that way.

As she speaks, she lets her touch slide from his neck.  Down his body.  To hold his battered hands.  She caresses where he’d torn nails searching for treasure he never found.  She envelops and protects, and with his eyes closed he can almost see the chain of light being cast down into the darkest depths where he has fallen.

He is the broken boy, trapped at the bottom of the well, and she is his song.  His _Ave Maria_ that pulls him to the surface, up into the world of light.  “I understand why you sacrificed what you did.  And I _have_ been angry, but John.”  Her fingers squeeze.  Tether pulling taught.  It should be strangling, suffocating, but he has _been_ strangled and suffocated.  The tighter she holds the more easily his breath comes to his chest and he forces his eyes open.  Meeting her brown ones as they entreat her message to him.  “I love you.  I wish to have a future, _with you._  And if I spend my days screaming at the past, I will lose the future that I will live whether I planned to or not.”

“You didn’t plan to survive Woodes Rogers,” John murmurs softly.  “You planned to die.”

“It’s a funny thing, living a life you do not expect to have.  And then having it be so different from what you thought it would be.”  He feels an apology welling up, but she silences him.  Fingers light against his lips.  “The decision you made, may not have been the one _I_ would have made.  But had I been in your shoes...had I watched Woodes Rogers aim a gun to your head, and needed to choose in that moment...had I let you die, I would have regretted that choice for the rest of my life.”  She looks away from him then.  A rare moment of shaken faith.  Of uncertainty that cloaks about her shoulders with unsettling ease.  

Years ago, Max had told him that if she’d killed him, she’d have to live with it.  It’s a lesson he took very much to heart.  Even going so far as to sharing that with Madi once, as if it would change her mind.  It hadn’t earned him any favor in the least.  “I it to owe my people to give them the life they want.  The leadership they desire, and the rule they deserve.  But I find I am often too conflicted to share their goals.  That while I am responsible for them here, my mind is elsewhere.”

“Where is it?”

It feels like turning back the clock.  Twisting fate and Death and making it stand still for one moment as they realign themselves by the stars.  Her laying in his arms.   _If I was a no good pirate..._ “My thoughts always follow you.”  They touch.  Brow to brow.  Heart to heart.  Soul to soul.  He pulls her to him.  She lets herself fall.

He breathes in her scent, and she strives not to aggravate his injuries.  Shoulders and elbows dislocated and strained from firing a gun behind his back and not handling the recoil.  His head has a gash on it from where the pistol fell from his hands and bashed him brutally.  His hands are torn and calloused from digging in the ground.  His leg...they told him the boot had rubbed the skin off.  Had started infecting the muscle with infection.  It had left cut after cut on his stump where he’d pressed it into the ground, and it only dug deeper and deeper.  There’d been no choice.  Rot had set in, and they’d done the best they could do.

Madi wraps her arms around him, and he feels light bathing him from above.  Shining over both of them in blissful acceptance.  “I knew you were gone,” Madi tells him.  Tears fall to his face.  “I knew the moment you were not there that next day, I _knew_ you were gone.” She clings fast, and he holds her as best he can. Not letting her go.  Not now.  Not ever.  He doesn’t want to be a pirate.  He doesn’t want the sea.  He doesn’t want to feign that he’s the king of a country he owes no allegiance to.  He wants--

 _God._ He wants to be left alone.

Left alone with three people he cares about most in the world.  With no responsibilities or attachments to anything except for them.  

“I knew you were gone,” Madi repeats, “And for _months_ I was required to play Julius’ game.  Pretending I did not care for you, pretending he was in my best interest.  But in all that time, all I could think of is you.  I spent months pretending I did not notice, hoping you would return.  And when you did not...I spent three months convincing all those who would listen that we needed to find you.  I am _so_ sorry it took so long.”

“You came,” John whispers.  He cups her face.  He kisses her brow, her lips, her cheeks.  “You came.”  She came.  

She didn’t stay behind to marry a man who for all intents and purposes _was_ the correct match.  She didn’t stay behind to follow the path of least resistance.  The one that had been planned for her.  The one that--

“You came,” he repeats.  He says it again, and again, and again.  Until they’re laying together side by side.  Like their first night under the stars.  Wrapped in each other body and mind.  Refusing to ever let go.

 

***

 

John cannot remember the last time he slept so peacefully.  The pain still lingers, and one of Madi’s physicians needed to apply a stinging poultice to his stump, but he lay curled against Madi’s side when it was over.  He felt her hands on his skin, and her heart beneath his ear, and he slept.  

He dreamed of pearls on gilded hills and books with endless pages.  He dreamt of peace and joy and delight.  He dreamt of the sound of laughter.  Of music and dancing.  Of feeling safe.  Of letting the years drift by.  

Madi is his.  He is hers.  

In the morning, he wakes.  She doesn’t leave him.  She doesn’t run to her duties or go to address her people.  She lays beside him still.  Fixing his hair.  Pulling the knots loose from his bangs and setting them in place properly.  He would stay here with her until the end of time if God would permit it.

Instead, God sends James with a bowl of fruit, a pitcher of water, and three mugs.  Madi welcomes him in with barely a hint of worry considering her state of being.  Her evening clothes are wrinkled and old.  Hardly appropriate for company.  But James neither seems concerned with her appearance, nor John’s present state.  

He apologizes out of habit, not intent.  

James settles in on the floor across from the bed, setting the plate and cups down for them all to share.  “Thomas,” he announces, “is engaged in the most amusing display of intellectual maneuverings I have seen in a long time.”

“Oh?” Madi prods.  She kisses John on the lips.  Smiling at him as she keeps her back to James.  They’ve not yet fully sat up.  Madi is keeping John lying down.  Keeping him so she can press against his side.  Cup his face and stroke his neck.  

John’s not entirely sure what’s happening right now.  His attention is wavering, and he has the distinct impression that he’s missing something important.  That he’s being manipulated and controlled.  That—Madi kisses him.  Keeps running her hands along his body until he feels sleep reaching up from the past to remind him it still exists as an option.

Only...this doesn’t feel like the annoyed sleep of a man who has nothing else he wants.  It feels... _he_ feels settled.  Soothed.  Escapism replaced by an ideal that feels too nice to be called realism.  He doesn’t sleep, though.  He merely dozes. Skin warm and flushed and alive.  Stump not _quite_ as painful at the moment as it could be.  The swelling on his throat even feels a touch better.

The pain is still there, but that’s what chronic pain is.  It exists as another part of the standard baseline of acceptability.  Thomas walks on feet scarred and maimed by a horrid father from childhood, and he doesn’t take into account the pain that it must cause him.  John exists in a state of agony, and hardly recognizes it when it persists.  He shuffles the pain around.  Pays as little attention to it as possible, and enjoys the soothing sound of Madi and James talking to one another.  Laughing.

Madi sits up properly, settles John so his head rests on her lap.  He curls his fingers around her skirt, and he feels peace sink into his bones.  He lets his mind wander.  Lets it think of nice things.  The pretty fantasy of him and Madi with Thomas and James for the rest of their lives.  Side by side, never knowing where one began and the other ended.

The curtain hanging in Madi’s entrance is pushed to the side and Thomas enters.  Throwing himself down beside James so loudly that John has to look.  Watch as Thomas’ sweat soaked skin remains flushed even in the shade.  As James hands his partner a cup and smiles indulgently as he asks if Thomas won his argument.

“The Queen would like to see you John,” Thomas says by way of reply.  

So John rises.  Sitting up as best he can.  Letting his swaying head lead him on like the rocking of water against the hull of his ship.  Unsteadiness is the standard fare for being a seaman.  He can do this.  He looks up at James, and James nods.  

 _They_ can do this.  

Years ago, James had helped John make the final approach to the camp.  He’d let John use his shoulder for leverage.  Hoisted him in and out of the longboat.  Held his hand out as a brace.  John intends to use him for more than that now.  With one arm wrapped around James’ shoulders, they make their pace slowly from Madi’s home.

Through the village.

With all the people’s eyes on them.  Watching the one-legged creature and his retired pet pirate captain.  Watching them go.  James’ hold on him is fierce.  Uncompromising.  He will not let John fall.  And though John’s shoulders ache and his balance is severely compromised, he trusts that James will care for him.  Now, tomorrow, a month from now, a year—forever.

“All right,” John agrees before they reach the Queen’s chambers.  James’ left thumb strokes the outside of his wrist where he’s braced.  He can feel James looking down at him.  Waiting for clarification.

“All right?” James asks slowly.  

“All right,” John repeats.  He dares a chance to look at his Captain.  A man who may not be the loathsome pirate lord named Flint, but who is still John’s Captain in every way that matters.  “I’ll go to Savannah.”

His Captain nods.  “All right.”  It’s agreed.

Someone announces their presence to the Queen and they are allowed passage.  James helps him inside, and they stand there like they have stood there so many times before.  Side by side, hearts and minds as one.  It feels like a homecoming, more so than being here on dry land.   _This_ feels right.

The Queen is has been plagued by illness for months.  Growing weaker and more frail with each passing season.  She’s thin and frail now.  Think blankets draped over her legs and around her shoulders.  Her eyes are sunken in her head, and her hands are skeletal.  She reaches towards them, and beckons them closer.

James adjusts his hold, then leads him on.  One step after another, John hopping as best he can.  His strength wanes and his heart hurt from overexertion.  It is only when they are close enough to touch do they stop.  “Sit with me,” she commands.  

_Speaketh thy word, and I shall listen._

With all the careful dedication James can muster, he lowers John down.  It’s a careful process.  The wound is still too fresh to have any weight applied to it, but sitting upright necessitates that very thing.  It’s more comfortable to remain standing, leaning on James’ shoulder and balancing on one foot, than it is to sit like this.  But right now, in this moment, John will embrace the pain.  James dosen’t look like he knows whether to stay or go, but the Queen slashes her hand through the air.  Motions for him to sit by John too.

His shoulder brushes against John’s, but they sit together side by side.  “I have heard that you married my daughter without my permission.” The Queen  has never cared much for John.  She has always treated him with the kind of disdain she harbored for all white men.  A distrust that she did not pass to her daughter, but one that he finds no fault in.  They are both the results of the failures of history.  She is here, away from her homeland, because there are those from _his_ world that made it so.  And while his hand may not have personally shackled her, he nevertheless benefitted from the practice that she was subjected to.  

It is a history that mars his favor in her eyes.  For how else could this be seen save for another enslavement.  A shackle in the guise of matrimony, wrapped around her daughter and pulling her too from her homeland.  Separating her from those who love and care for her.  

John’s heart pounds beneath his ribs.  His brain aches.  He feels the still healing gash on his crown nearly splitting apart beneath the sharp ice of her constitution.  Her daughter is her family, her customs her law.  She has created a society in this world, and he had played at being King, and been found wanting. He lowers his eyes.

Respect now is all he can give her.  He has already taken so much, and proven that his opinion of her through his actions alone.   _Deals,_ Thomas had told him of.   _Deals and choices._  Each action adding to the defense or notoriety of the one committing them.  “She is my daughter.”  There is more emotion in those four words than any other phrase John has heard her utter.  “My _life.”_

With a hand that appears weak beyond measure, straggling and without muscle to give it shape, the Queen snatches John’s palm.  She squeezes it.  Her grasp is a chain of its own, tying them together.  James will not interfere, and John forces himself to meet the Queen’s eyes.  To face her retribution.  “What kind of mother would I be, to allow her to marry you?  Knowing what I know about you?”

Knowing of his reputation, his actions.  His efforts to deteriorate the war they all fought so hard for.  John’s head spins.  He tries to find words.  Tries to find exactly what needed to be said.  In the end, he finds that there is no story he can tell, no lie he can conjure that will give him grace.  She will spot the lie.  She will hate him for it just as she hates him now.  

“You know that I traded the war, traded the possibility of endless death and despair, for a pardon that saved all of your people.  Ensured that this island is to be protected, safe from British rule or colonial invasion.  I traded the threat of violence that you had feared before our arrival, for the certainty of peace.  Where the children of your village will grow up to be men and women who can have children of their own.  

“I lied, and I cheated, and I stole the treasure that belonged to this war, but all the lives in this village are worth more than that treasure.  Your _daughter_ is worth more than that treasure.  She was then, she is now.  I’m not a leader.  I know that.  You know that too.  But I do love your daughter.  You know that I love her.  You know that she loves me...I just want her to live.  To live and make the choices that she chooses to make.  Whatever those choices may be.”

The Queen looks at him.  That’s it.  She just looks.  She observes him for all he has to offer.  His sweaty brow, his marred hands, his destroyed body.  He is a cripple and a pirate.  He is a failure of a King and a tragic friend.  He clings desperately to the notion that his actions will be seen as understandable to her, that his choice will be seen as correct.  

Tight fingers squeeze tighter, and he is pulled closer.  Made to teeter off balance as he is brought into her space.  “I have raised her to lead.  To rule.  You would have her cast off her responsibility so easily?  For something as selfish as _love?”_

“I would have her do as she wants,” John replies.  His throat feels tight.  His words starting to lose their strength.  He pulls in one last breath of air, knowing that from there on out his words will need to be short.  Swift.  Providing the greatest impact or under the understanding that they be left alone until another time.  He licks his lips.  “I wish Madi to be given the _freedom_ to do as she wants.  To not be forced to follow my path, or Julius’ path, or any path save the one she finds most agreeable to her.”  He should stop now, but he can’t.  He needs to finish.  “Even if that path is yours.”

James winces at his side, but John cannot be ashamed.  Not by this.  The Queen wanted honesty, and so John gave her honesty.   His throat feels scratchy and raw.  A wave of dizziness starts to cloud his thoughts, and he feels nausea starting to bubble frin deep within.  Horror clashes with his physical agony, and he tries to quell the feeling before it could multiply unduly.

“Captain Flint,” the Queen looks to James.  Expression tight.  Emotions firmly held in check.  She shows no signs of approval, but no signs of _disapproval_ either.  “What are your thoughts on this matter?”

For several moments, James seems to be considering what he wants to say.  He keeps scanning John’s face, as though he could divine the words from John’s brain and breathe them into life.  He must know by now that John’s ability to speak at all will be severely limited from this point forward, because he doesn’t pressure John to continue his plight.  Instead, he nods slowly.  Redirects his attention to the Queen, and spins a tale.

“I knew a man once, named Solomon Little,” James starts.  John’s breath stalls in his throat.  As  a man who already struggles to breathe properly, new reasons to _stop_ are alarming and ill advised.  But the shock of it keeps him from coughing around a gasp.  Keep him from doing anything but stare, uncomprehendingly, as James _lies._ “He was a clever man, with a sharp wit and an unquestionable sense of duty and loyalty.  Brave, to a fault and wise.

“He was a pastor, one of the Anglicans sent over from London to lift the spirits of parishioners in the New World.  This pastor would go door to door, speaking to various members of his flock and do what he could to retain their faith in God.  In return for his devout work, he asked only for whatever his flock could give in order to help him to live his life peacefully amongst them.

“Pastor Little was, for all intents and purposes a decent man.  A good man.  However Nassau being what it is—there were those who were interested in confirming whether that man was as virtuous as he claimed.  A bet was made up amongst some of the men on the account, to see whether Pastor Little truly did the lord’s work.  One man even promising to give up his sins for good should Little prove him wrong, so certain was he of Little’s corruption.

“Now this man, the one who decided to test Pastor Little’s mettle, he was a fellow by the name of Meeks.  A quartermaster of reasonable skill who had a way of knowing whenever someone lied.  I never met a man before or since who was able to pick out a thief or a shark in a crowd of gamblers, but that was Mr. Meeks.

“With the blessing of his Captain and his crew, all eager to know if Pastor Little was as they supposed, Mr. Meeks set off inland.  Searching and searching until he came across the man traveling his path from one home to another.  They met, spoke to each other briefly, and Pastor Little welcomed Mr. Meeks to join him on his journey.

“Now the Pastor knew that Mr. Meeks was a pirate, but he insisted that such things hardly mattered so long as they were on the same path and determined to assist one another.  Mr. Meeks, not in any rush to correct the man, appropriately agreed to follow the Pastor’s rules.

“About an hour into their journey they come across an old man and his cart.  The man was tired and sore, and his cart’s trapped in the mud.  There’s nothing that can be done for the man, and so he shouts he’d be better off being a pirate than being an honest laborer.

“Pastor Little questions Mr. Meeks on whether he approves, and Mr. Meeks tells him that there’s nothing to approve.  The man is angry and upset, but to make a choice such as that—it requires true thought.  True intent do change.  After setting the cart straight, the man wished to simply continue on his way, never once truly wishing to join the account.  

“They travel on, discussing the morality of the decision until they reach the home of the Pastor’s most difficult parishioner.  A widow who was Anglican in name but not deed.  The Pastor had, for some time, been attempting to sway her back to the faith properly, but she would not assent to his pleadings.  She would not listen.  

“Mr. Meeks watched as Pastor Little read her the good book, told her the word of the Lord, recited psalms and prayers on her behalf.  She would not listen.  She sent him away, calling his word filth and his presence unlikeable.

“Exasperated, the Pastor asked what it would take for her to come to his sermons, to take communion, to truly rejoin the faith.  She considered for a moment, and then suggested a kiss.  To prove he was human and not merely words on a page, that he struggled and fought the same as the rest of them.  Desperate to prove the worthiness of his cause, and to pull this woman into the fold, he did just that.  He kissed her.

"But when the kiss turned passionate and the Pastor's hand rose to fondle the woman... Mr. Meeks murdered him for it.  For if a man could be swayed so easily by the thought a kiss—surely, they could be swayed in other venues as well.  Surely his intent had been shrouded by a lie of faith.  One that was distracting from the truth that deserved to be heard."

James finishes his story with soulful solemnity.  Waiting for the Queen to nod before he shifted to his analysis and reason.  “The point is, ma’am, every man can be tempted.  Every man can make the wrong choice.  Everyone who proves they are the best, and insists that their actions are more true than any others, likely does have something to hide as well.  There’s no shame in admitting failures or admitted faults.  The shame comes from not admitted them, and pretending such faults don’t exist.  From hiding being a lie and not speaking your true intent to thoe around you.

“John made the choice he made because he loves your daughter.  He cares for her more than any woman in this world.  He never claimed to be a good leader, or a good King.  If you’re looking for that, I can tell you he will do the best he can, but if you want him to lie to you, tell you he’s worthy of being a King...you’ll find faults every time.  His intentions were pure though his actions disagreeable, and in a King...you will struggle to accept that.

“Now...Julius is a good man.  He’ll be a good king.  But he he has his faults too.  And as a parent, I’d be more concerned with the faults of a man who does not care for my child’s well being, over those of a man who places her safety and happiness above all others in the world.  You know John’s faults and John's intentions. Do you know Julius’ as well?”

The Queen is still holding onto John’s hand.  After all this time, her fingers have not lessened in strength.  She squeezes it in a pulsing grasp, eventually pulling John closer.  Pain flares along his stump, but he shifts as best he can.  Leaning so she may speak to him directly.  Their faces only inches apart.  “You will go with daughter, with my blessing,” the Queen tells him.  

The world stops spinning.

“You will devote yourself to her.  And you will swear to me, that who _you_ are, will not endanger her.  And you will swear that your oath to guarantee her _freedom,_ remains eternal.  Are we understood, John Silver?”

“Yes,” he breathes out.  “Yes, your majesty.”

She brings his hand to her lips and she kisses the scars along his knuckles.  “Go, then.  And do not disappoint me.”

James needs to help him to his feet.  He needs to carry him from the Queen’s chamber.  John’s one good leg drags more than hops along.  He can barely rationalize what transpired.  They’re free.  They’re _free._  Madi can choose to leave if she wants.   _He_ can leave if he wants.  James and Thomas and them—his mind struggles to make sense of it.  Struggles to put the pieces in order.

He’s still reeling when they return to Madi’s home.  Where Thomas and Madi are discussing passages from _Don Quixote._   The plate of food still set between them.  They fall silent at their arrival, and John doesn’t know what to say.  He looks at his wife, and knows it’s not his throat that keeps him silent.  It’s his desperate hope.  He doesn’t know if he should believe this.  He doesn’t know if he _wants_ to believe this.

But she’s there, and she’s looking at him.  She’s waiting for him to say something.  He know he has to say something.  “What happened?”  Thomas asks.  

“James,” John starts there.  That’s easier.  That’s much easier.  “James recounted...the...the _Friar’s Tale..._ with...pirates and...Miranda.” And him.  Pirates and Miranda and him.  John’s still trying to understand how it worked.  How Flint drew a point from it all.  James leads him closer.  He sets him between Madi and Thomas.  One on either side of him, and it’s claustrophobic.  It’s perfect.  It’s— “You’re coming to Savannah?” John whispers.  

He feels slow.  Slow and dumb and foolish.  His thoughts usually spin so much faster than this, a wheel running wild down a hill.  But freedom takes many different forms, and this wheel takes its time.  Wobbling and bouncing, but reaching its destination in the end.

He’d told Flint he didn’t want Madi to come with them.  But it hadn’t been the truth.  She had been his intention from the start, but her _happiness_ had been her goal.  He had been lying to himself about what that happiness meant, though.  He’d crafted a story that he’d needed to tell himself to keep going.  She retained her position as the Queen of the Maroons because he could not divorce her from it.

In doing so, he failed to account for her choice.  It has always been _her_ choice.  And by choosing it for her, he has been denying her the freedom she deserved to make it.  

Madi cups his face with both hands.  Her nails scratch the back of his head and rub the tender spots that always make his eyes close and his lips part.  She leans forward and kisses him, and he feels his heart burst free from confinement.  No longer retained behind walls of sinew and bone.  It has fled the cold chambers of his chest and rejoined its mate in Madi.  

“You are enough for me,” she tells him firmly.  “I was made to tend, and not be tended to.  But it my garden to choose.  And mine, to reap what I sow.”

“All right.”

They’re going to Savannah.


	8. The Summoner's Tale

“You can hear the ocean from up here.”  Thomas isn’t used to the sea.  John likes that about him.  That despite the fact that he’s been with James for...however long it’s been, Thomas still retains a particular affinity toward land that’s impossible to ignore.  He wonders at the sea, marvels at it, but he doesn’t feel at home there.  Doesn’t think it’s anything more than a pleasant thing that laps at his feet.  Washing them in greeting, before slinking back from whence it came.

They’re sitting in John’s hut.  Packing what few things he cares for.  He’s not bothered to decorate much.  Has cared more for its prefuncionary uses than its homliness. He has a few waterlogged books that he’s fond of, but nothing really more than that.  Trinkets and baubles and loops of twine.  “After being on a ship for so long... _not_ hearing the waves is a discomfort I cannot begin to describe.”  John presses his palm against a false floorboard and lifts it up.  Revealing a small lock box.  He never needed to pay for anything anymore.  The income he received as part of his being a captain on the account.  Well.  

“It’s a lot,” Thomas breathes out, staring at the contents of the box once John opens it.  It’s filled with gems and pearls.  Coins and pieces of eight.  John smiles at him.  Lips twisted half way up his face, brows raised in good humor.  

“I wasn’t _just_ freeing slaves,” John tells Thomas blandly.  “Pirate King or no, they’d not have followed me if I’d been incapable of keeping their pockets lined.”  Relocking the box and passing it to Thomas, John struggles back to his feet.  Foot.   _Grammar,_ John decides, _can go fuck itself._  He’s got his crutch now.  His shoulders healed enough to take the weight.  He can’t go very far, but he can do this.  

Thomas is still staring at the lock box like he’s not quite sure what he’s meant to do with it.  For a moment, John wonders if it’s offending Thomas’ good puritan sensibility to be holding evidence of thievery in his own two hands.  “What was your reaction?” John asks as he adjusts his position.  After a week of rest, he’d gained back most of his strength.  The swelling around his throat had lessened, his bruising faded.  

James had recommended they leave soon, and the final preparations were being made.  John has no idea what he’ll do with the ship, but he suspects he’ll get something for his time there too.  James promised he’d get it sorted appropriately, seemingly the only one who remembered John had no idea what he was doing half the time when it came to the management of a vessel.  He’d learned much over the past few years, but what he’d learned came from experience.

There’s not much experience to be had with how to handle the peaceful transition for a captaincy to a non-mutinous crew.

“I beg your pardon?” Thomas blinks rapidly as he lifts his eyes from the chest.  His fingers tighten around it and John’s tempted to tease him.  Instead, he moves forward with the question he’s really interested in.

“When you learned the pardons worked.  That your plan worked.  What was your reaction.”  John’s imagined it a hundred times over already.  He’s wondered at how James broke the news and exactly what the man could have gained from it.  He wondered if it was shared over dinner, in the light of the day, in the midst of a fight or in the afterglow of something wonderful.

The answer that John had not expected, though, was the one he received.  The one where Thomas just sighs, and looks out towards the ocean.  Saying, “I knew.”  It makes sense, John supposes.  Woodes Rogers’ plan had been point by point exactly as Thomas had plotted.  

“Did he consult you on it?”

“No, but the foreman.  Oglethorpe, he told me.  He appreciated my mind, and put it to work where he could.  He’d thought it’d make me proud to learn that I’d done some good in the world.  I suppose in a way I was.  Proud.  Afterwards I was enraged, but…”  Thomas falls silent.  He does that sometimes.  When John or James or Madi bring up something he doesn’t want to talk about.  He’s good at redirecting when he expects it, but if caught unawares he struggles to form arguments that last.  “I grieved.  So much was lost and...for what?  My plan was still used.  It still went into effect.  It still worked, but the suffering it wrought...well.”

John doesn’t know what to say to Thomas. But it’s Madi who taught John that sometimes touch is more important than word.  Madi who showed him how to reach out.  To place his hand on another and watch as they took comfort from it.  He’d never been comfortable with the notion prior.  Too many years of managing turmoil on his own had left him in a state of uncertainty whenever a physical presence was required.

He’d frozen when madi first hugged him after Mr. Scott died.  He’d not known how to respond when James pressed a hand to his shoulder when they assumed Madi had died.  But John’s made an effort at knowing how useful touch can be.  If only so he could manipulate others by its function.

He reaches for Thomas now.  A hand on the shoulder potentially—they’re embracing.  Thomas’ arms encircle his body, and John freezes once more.  His hands hesitate in the air and he...he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. He doesn’t know what to do.  His clever mind falls silent and he’s trapped in place, mouth awkwardly protesting without uttering a sound.  

Settling for a return fire, John shifts so he can hold Thomas.  The man is taller than him by a good measure.   _Fuck, he’s taller than the Captain!_ But he’s curling over.  Brow pressed against John’s shoulder.  His spine is arched, his hands tight.  John can feel the warmth emanating from his body and it’s...good.  It’s _good._

It’s good and it’s not right that John is enjoying this when he should be offering comfort, but he cannot help the feeling that’s growing within him.  Nor the sudden sting of loss that births within him as Thomas lets go.  “Do you have everything?” he asks John, rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes as if John won’t notice the glistening of his eyes.  

There is no response that John can give that will settle the feelings that have undoubtedly arisen between them in that moment.  Thankfully, he does not have to concern himself with such things.  Israel plods loudly into the hut.  Heavy feat banging against the wooden floors.  Thomas turns, scowl on his face, but John cannot quite manage to mold a mask looking something like ire.  He is still enraptured by the wonder that is Thomas McGraw.  

He thinks,   _How did this happen?_ Even as he hears Thomas and Israel start up another bickering argument that feels natural at this point.  Shaking loose the strange thoughts that have lodged themselves within his brain, John asks if Thomas could allow him a moment with Israel alone.

By the look on Thomas’ face Heaven and Hell will have decided to bar from entry by the time he lets John alone with Israel.  He’s prepared to stand there as John’s _protector_ of all things, and it’s just as startlingly amusing now as it was when it’d first transpired in Thomas’ bookshop.  “Please?” he asks politely.  “He shan’t hurt me.”  At least, he’s rather certain Israel won’t.  

Right now, John cannot recall feeling more clear headed.  He’s...strangely at peace.  Has been so since the bruises started to fade and the thought of returning to Savannah faded from dream to reality.  They’re going...to a _home._ Perhaps _his_ home.  It’s a titillating possibility he can _taste_.

“Swear it,” Thomas growls in Israel’s face.  “Swear you will not lay a _hand_ on him.”

Blue eyes squint over Thomas’ shoulder at John.  Red brows raise.  “You heard him,” John answers.

Amusement grows as Israel huffs.  Growls under his breath.  Cursing something fierce before laying a dramatic hand over his heart.  “I do so solemnly swear, _my lord.”_ He means it sarcastically of course, but there’s something oddly gratifying about someone else calling Thomas a lord.  Even so far removed from London and Whitehall, even knowing he has never _known_ Thomas as a lord, it’s the principle of the thing.  

Something else that has been stolen from Thomas that he deserves to have.  The one honest lord in all of England, and here he is with them.   _Irony,_ John thinks, _is well and truly present in our lives._

Thomas takes one last look at John before he nods curtly and leaves.  He does a terrible job of showing that he’s standing in ear shot, and an even worse job of appearing calm about it.  James and Madi, who John _thinks_ are walking the beach for some useful reason and having melancholic conversation in the process, will almost certainly notice him.  

Once they’re alone, Israel turns to him.  For a man whom everyone is afraid of, John considers himself rather grateful that he’s actually bothered to not be afraid of him.  He’s long since stopped seeing a point in doing so.  Israel isn’t a loose canon.  He’s a lonely follower desperate for someone to point him in the right direction.  “You’re fucking off?”  Israel asks.  

Men like Israel Hands are easy to understand.  They require direction.  Leadership.  They require a plan of action, and someone unafraid to tell them why it’s in their best interests.  Their partnership has lasted because John’s been careful about working with him.  Directing him exactly as he needs to be directed.  

“I need this,” is not an answer that means anything to a man like Israel.  Though it’s the one John provides.  Israel doesn’t care about _John’s_ needs.  Not in so far as they detract from his own.  There’s a swell of irate panic that swirls about Israel’s countenance, and John moves swiftly to quell it.  “The war’s over.  My fight here is over.  I cannot keep fighting for—”

“—You said you would be king! You said _Fuck Edward Teach._ You said you were taking Nassau! Now what have you done?”

“I changed my mind.”  The promise that Israel made Thomas is quickly about to be broken.  Israel strides forward.  He towers over John, and John sighs.  As intimidating a picture as Israel makes, there is something broken in John.  He’s not _afraid_ of these displays.  He’s not put off by them.  He’s not concerned by them.  Fear has never entered this exchange of power between them.  “Come with me,” John says.

And Israel recoils.  He blinks rapidly at John.  Anguish shifting to something not far off from confusion.  It’s something Thomas will not understand.  Something Flint may just yet.  Madi has always known, but John doubts Madi _doesn’t_ know much.  Israel is his friend.  In so much as John is capable of making friends.

He lies and manipulates and talks people into position, but there are those he cares for.  “I never thanked you for what you did that day...on Skeleton Island.”  Realization settles like a stone.  Israel snorts through his nose and crosses his arms over his chest.  Defensive.  Still unsettled.

“Which time?”

“This last time, everytime.  Does it matter?  My gratitude was never properly expressed.”

“It matters.” John doesn’t know why.  Israel doesn’t explain.  Instead, he shifts the topic ever so slightly.  “Did they tell you how we found you?”

“No.”  He expects it wasn’t a pleasant story.  If the collective silence of his loved ones is anything to go off of, he suspects that it’s a story that they would all soon forget.  

Outside, James and Madi call out to Thomas.  They’re making their way up from the beach and John watches as Thomas looks between them all.  Unhappy and surly.  He’ll be in a mood for hours if he’s not settled soon.  James should be able to see to that.  

“Don’t know how he found you,” Israel grumbles.  He juts his chin over toward Thomas.  “We heard the shot go off, and he went after you.  Crashing through them woods like a bloody hound.  Chasing echoes and nonsense until, there you were.  He undid that noose ‘round your neck.  He had me fix up your arms.  Then he carried you down that hill while Flint was off with fucking Ben Gunn—trying to kill Billy Bones before he got away.”

For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to John that Thomas could have been the one carrying him.  It makes sense, he supposes.  Israel was better served as a defender than one laden with John’s weight.  Madi certainly couldn’t have done it.  Flint, as well, was a fighter.  Not a mule.  “I let you get captured.  I said nothing while you were gone.  Figured you’d just gone off again.  Didn’t even organize a search party.  Not until it was too damn late to do a fuckin’ thing about it and—”

“—It’s not your fault.”  Israel glares at him.  But John shakes his head.  “It’s not your fault.  You did as I asked.  You kept Madi safe.  You kept her whole.  I don’t blame you for a thing.  I don’t care if Thomas is the one who found me, who carried me off that fucking island.  I don’t care.  It wasn’t your fault.”

“You’re leaving,” Israel snaps out.  

“I asked you to come with me.”

“Why the fuck would you want _me_ in your fucking little paradise? With those shit fuckers and your wife?”

Seeing no alternative option, John settles for a joke.  “Well, you’re not welcome in our bed if that’s what you’re concerned about.” If possible, Israel’s face turns as dark as his beard.  He sputters inelegantly, and it’s so humorous a moment that John laughs loudly enough to startle Thomas.  

“I want you in my paradise, Israel, because I trust you.  Because the world that I envision is one that is smaller, perhaps, than it once was.  I can offer you no kingdom, nor riches, nor true vengeance over Teach.  I can offer you only a small portion of the world that I mean to make peaceful with those I care for.  Those who do not yet know of the incredible lengths you have gone through to keep me alive.  I’m an inescapable terror on every unwitting person I interact with and perhaps having you at my side will ensure my transition goes well.  And...perhaps you will be able to find peace too.  One that is not spent living the in the wreck of a ship with opium addicts as your compatriots.”

John hasn’t asked James or Thomas if Israel could come.  But Madi will make the case for him if he senses dissent.  There will be bickering and arguing, but in the end, John doesn’t truly see a future where they would deny him this.  For many years, Israel has been the only one who stood at his side.  Perhaps not always offering the most healthy advice in the world, but not letting him completely succumb to the immobilizing melancholy that threatened to overwhelm him time after time.  

John will not see him wasting away in isolation.  He simply won’t.  

But the thinking of it seems to have caught Israel by surprise.  He doesn’t know how to respond, and so John finishes gathering his things.  Finishes scooping up his half destroyed copy of _The Canterbury Tales_ and casting a weathered eye about.  There’s nothing else he wants.  Let the island claim the rest.

“Why the fuck do you even read that shite?” Israel asks, and it’s as good a question as any.  It’s as good an _answer_ as any.  John grins broadly and he passes the copy to Israel.  

“You should read it yourself sometime, I think you’ll find it enlightening.”  The look on his face makes it clear that he doesn’t think anything of the sort.  In fact, he growls and snaps his teeth at John.  Waspish in his affections.  

Carefully levering himself down out of his old home, John joins his wife and friends on the beach.  “I’ve invited Israel to come stay with us,” he proclaims.  And truly, the sight of his Captain’s eyes bugging and Thomas choking on air is _quite_ amusing.  Madi smiles serenely and shifts to stand at John’s side.  Silently showing her support by wrapping an arm around his back and letting him settle his own arm around her shoulders.

“He’s not staying in the house,” _James_ grumbles.  

“He’s not staying on the _continent,”_ Thomas hisses.  But James gives him a baleful look, and John does his best to seem pleading, and Madi just lets her smile grow as she casually suggests the attic above the barn.  Surely it could be renovated to provide appropriate living arrangements for the man.  

James has a trace of Flint in his eyes as he scowls over at Israel.  “The last time a member of our crew spent too much time near the dairy goats the poor beast never walked right again.”

John snorts.  “Let’s be clear.  It was a member of _your_ crew, and I have never once had occasion to doubt Mr. Hands’ intentions towards our dairy goats in the past few years we’ve sailed together.  I assure you, that Mr. Hands is a good christian fellow who will consider your goats’ virtue his highest priority.”

“Fuck you John Silver,” Israel growls and everyone is laughing.

Everyone, save Thomas, who seems to be in a state of stupefied shock.  “Oh God, he’s actually coming to live with us isn’t he?”

“You’ll find that John has a way of picking up strays,” Madi informs him.

They’re still laughing by the time they reach the ship.  Bidding their farewells to the Queen and Madi’s people, before embarking on (hopefully) their final journey out to sea.

 

***

 

Later, in the quiet of the night, when John cannot sleep and is standing by the rails, Israel joins him on the deck.  Sits at the base of the mast with a candle and a pipe.  He smokes tobacco liberally and he squints at John’s book.  

“What the fuck’s the point of poetry anyway?” he asks, and John smiles at the sea.  “If you’re gonna say something, why not just say it plain?”

“Because if I just tell you the friar gets his hand farted on for being a greedy whore in the Summoner’s Tale, it’s not nearly as fun as hearing it in rhyme now is it?” He glances back at his companion, and takes in the startled look on the man’s face.  “Not all those poems are about something serious.  Some are quite entertaining.”

Flipping through the pages, Israel squints at the text.  John knows the exact moment when he reaches the passage in question, and he lets out a boisterous laugh.  Loud enough to wake the dead and shake the watchmen from their resting states.  They blink stupidly about the ship and stare at Israel as tears stream from his eyes.

 _This too,_ John thinks, _is like watching a man wake from a nightmare._  Their war is over, and like dutiful soldiers: it’s time for them all to go home to rest.  It’s time for lightness and laughter.  It’s time for forgiveness and bliss.  It’s time to make a home on solid earth, and leave the sand and its temporary castles to be washed away by the sea.

 

 

 

 

> "Well then," said he, "there's something I shall give  
>  Your holy convent while I yet may live.                      
>  And in your hand you'll have it right away,  
>  But only on condition that you say  
>  That you'll divide it up so that, dear brother,  
>  Each friar gets as much as every other.  
>  Upon your faith you'll swear this now to me,               
> 
> No bickering and no dishonesty."  
>   "Upon my faith," the friar said, "I swear!"  
>  He shook the fellow's hand then to declare,  
>  "See, here's my vow, in me there'll be no lack."  
>   "Then put your hand down underneath my back,"            
> 
> The fellow told him, "feel around behind,  
>  For underneath my rump a thing you'll find  
>  That I have hidden, kept in privity."  
>   "Ah," thought the friar, "that shall go with me!"  
>  And then he launched his hand right down the rift  
>  In hope that at the end he'd find a gift.                    
>  And when this sick man felt the friar begin  
>  To grope around his orifice, right in  
>  The friar's hand the fellow let a fart.  
>  No single horse that's ever drawn a cart                     
>  Has ever let a fart with such a sound.  
>   The friar, lion-mad, rose with a bound.

 

Israel rejoices in the silliness of the text.  His shoulders shaking and guffaws only growing louder and louder.  He’s wheezing by the time he’s finished, and John watches him the whole while.  

 _It’s worth it,_ he knows. _This right here...this is worth it._

The war is over.  And for the first time in a long while, John looks forward to what tomorrow will bring.


	9. The Tale of Melibee

The _ Elysium  _ is a good ship.  A great one, even.  Madi doesn't know the full story of how John managed to acquire it.  Either he talked someone out of it, took it by force, or had just been gifted it like one of the many treasures bequeathed upon a conquering hero, somehow it became his.  It is not unlike the  _ Walrus.   _ One hundred and fifty men man it at any given time, all dedicated sailors who follow John with the same fanatical fervor that they'd have followed Teach or Hornigold.  The only difference being, John has a remarkable capacity to make people like him.

_ It is, _ Madi thinks,  _ the most tragic part about him.  _  For as easy as it is for people to like John, _ John  _ has difficulty liking them back.  He has surface likes, the kind of mellow feelings that make him approachable.  He smiles a lot, he engages in conversation, he finds entertainment in their actions and their positions.  But as far as true emotional attachment, that is far harder for John to commit to.  He shies away from actually giving his heart into the care of another.  Simultaneously both guarded and approachable. 

Even now, as his ship sets sail for the final time under his command, there's a kind of depressing sadness that fills the crew.  They stop John as he walks the length of the  _ Elysium.   _ They share anecdotes with him, and he listens to their tales.  He jokes and teases them right back, and he gives each of them the courtesy of letting them say their peace.  No one begrudges him his retirement.  They merely wish it hadn't been on their watch.  As though, they'd somehow been the ones to let him down.  As though this crew hadn't been capable of living up to whatever expectations they believed he had of them, and he'd given up the account because of their failings.

For a man who despises being placed in a leadership position, actually  _ leading  _ is something that comes surprisingly naturally to John.  Madi wishes he'd let himself see it, but knows he never will.  He's spent a lifetime hiding his heart from the world, and the more people John spends time with, the more likely that well protected organ will be exposed.  Will share its boundless love.   Will be stabbed by the pain of betrayal, the darkest depths of loss, and be broken and scattered like shards of mirror glass.  Both reflecting and embracing its own pain.

No one prepared him for the role of tender, and while he  _ could  _ have been a great leader...it is not the path he deserves.  She would not wish the pain of such burden upon him a moment longer than he can bare it. 

Thomas and Israel have been making good on their promises to John that they will at least attempt to behave around one another.  Both staying on opposite sides of the ship.  It leaves John to migrate between them, and James to play as buffer when necessary.  More often than not, that left Madi and James time to themselves while they observed the various complications John's edict had created.

But it's a nice kind of comfort.  One that Madi will not begrudge no matter the circumstance.  She has missed being able to speak with James.  Missed having the opportunity to discuss the world outside of the war.  He tells her about the land he and Thomas acquired, how they took up menial labor positions for a short time before managing to secure funds for their home.  How Thomas' bookshop had been something that had started as an errant thought and then festered into something more.

Madi tries to picture herself working the fields alongside James.  Tries picturing herself in Thomas' store, learning about how to piece books together and repair their broken spines.  Tending, and not being tended.  It's a funny kind of narrative that she plays with for several days.   It isn't until they're halfway to Savannah that an altogether  _ different  _ thought strikes her unaware.  One she hadn't noticed specifically because her husband has a habit of not letting her notice  _ anything.   _ "Have you spoken to John?"

"About?"  James is confused, and his expression shows it.  His nose scrunches and his brows dip down over his eyes. 

"Anything?"  She doesn't mean the brief conversations they must have had here or there.  Not the offer for John to stay with them, nor even the mindless words exchanged over mutual companionship.  Just today she had witnessed John teasing James over his beard growing in again, telling him that he was starting to look like a pirate once more.

But these are  _ distractions.  _  Neither John nor James have spoken to one another with anything resembling true substance in quite some time, and the more James pretends otherwise—the more suspicious Madi becomes.  "Why have you not?" she asks when James continues to sputter.

Somewhere across the ship, someone is telling John a particularly amusing account of a shark hunt gone wrong.  John's leaning up against the rail, laughing loud enough that it echoes across the sea.  They're just getting to the part where John's about to tell his own tale, and everyone's gathering round.  Eager to hear how their one legged captain managed to reel in not one, but  _ two  _ great white sharks after being becalmed for nearly a month  with only one harpoon and a hook.

Madi looks at James as James watches John.  It's impossible to deny how fond the man is of John Silver.  Just as it would be impossible to deny the opposite.  "You have both committed to this future, and yet neither of you thought it best to  _ discuss  _ your past with one another?"

"What is there to discuss?" James asks obtusely.  He's just as stubborn as James McGraw as he was as Flint.  Only now he shows his stubbornness through obstinate polite deference where before he added a flair of physical prowess to the mix.  Madi isn't impressed either way.  She crosses her arms over her chest and is determined to wait him out. 

There is much for them to discuss.

John's reasons for bringing Flint to that prison.  His reasons belief that James would hate him.  His desire to keep them all separated because he felt that was in their best interests.  His paranoia around upsetting James in a way that will make James send them away.  For even if John doesn't speak the words, it is something Madi knows he fears.  That he'll have taken Madi from her life, sworn to Madi's mother that he will do right by her, and then fail the moment James decides they're done.

That kind of terror does not disappear simply by a few choice words dripping with kindness.  It's ingrained fear and stems from the root of all fears: uncertainty.  John needs to be certain, and while he's making this choice: he will not be satisfied until that fear is alleviated. 

James clears his throat.  He places a hand gently on Madi’s shoulder.  She meets his eyes.  “If you spend all your days worried about someone else, you’ll find that you haven’t spent enough time addressing your own concerns.”  She doesn’t know what he means, and her eyes narrow as she tries to find out. 

He kisses her forehead.  It’s the kind of action that he wouldn’t have been able to even consider when they first met.  One that over time, even her body guards had grown lax about.  One that now, has her lean forward into the gentle touch.  She has missed his companionship.  Missed his friendship.  If nothing else, moving to Savannah will give them the opportunity to grow it from the ashes of their ruined war. 

That’s the thing with ashes, though.  When the fire comes through and burns the forest, the soil becomes rich.  Fertile.  Good for new growth and new opportunities.  A new forest will grow, and perhaps in a different size and shape from the one that preceded it.  But it will grow all the same, flourishing with new life and embracing its new beginning. 

John’s got his audience howling with laughter, and Madi realizes her opportunity to press James for information has passed.  He’s avoiding the conversation under the guise of tracking down Thomas.  Just as deft at misdirection as he’d always been. 

Sighing, Madi looks back out toward the horizon.  The shark-hunting tales had been humorous anecdotes to share as distractions from a storm coming.  Chasing their heels.  It’s dark clouds approach with a sense of tortured forewarning.  “Probably best if you go inside, ma’am,” Tom Morgan beseeches gently.  She forces a smile, and follows after James. 

 

***

 

There’s some hope that they’ll reach Georgia before the storm catches them, but their hopes are dashed just as morning rises the following day.  Madi wakes with a jolt when a particularly harsh swell smacks into the side of the ship.  Thunder crashes loudly overhead.  James and John are nowhere to be seen, and it’s just Thomas with her in the Captain’s cabin.  He’s sitting upright, one hand pressed firmly against the side of a bookshelf, the other on the base of his seat. 

Between the two of them, Madi believes she’s likely sailed more than Thomas.  His journeys being restricted to transit only.  And even with that in mind, she’s never faced a storm at sea.  From the look on Thomas’ face--he hasn’t either.  Rain splatters against the windows of the cabin, the ocean churns beneath them. 

People are shouting.  Commands and exclamations form a chord on the weather’s musical sheets.  Drums made of thunder, marimbas made from rain.  The creaking of the ship squeals out like a harpsichord. And the chorus continues.  

“When did it start?” Madi asks.  

It takes Thomas a few minutes to answer.  A particularly hard shock to the ship has him leaning over his knees, fingers turning white beneath his grip.  He heaves a breath in, lets it out as best he can, then looks up at her.  “Few hours ago,” he manages.  

She’s surprised she slept through it.  She tries to remember if John had woken her before he left.  He’s not particularly silent as he moves, and the storm itself is an orchestra of sounds.  Another shout, she can hear John’s voice.  Demanding that someone grab hold of... _ something.   _ The wind embraces John’s tenor and twists it around with a whistling howl.  

Delicately, Madi gets to her feet.  She keeps her knees bent to manage the turbulent movement of the floor.  Stumbling toward the door, she’s nearly thrown into the wall as another wave smashes into the side of the ship.  Already, a bruise starts to form.  Gritting her teeth, Madi forces the door open, blinking dumbly at the chaos that makes up the deck.  Crewmen are desperately fighting against the wind, sails are being furled and the shouting only gets louder. 

She cannot see John nor James at all.   _ They shouldn’t be out there...it’s not their ship any longer.   _ It was  _ never  _ James’ ship in the first place.  And yet John has always been James’ second.  His companion and his friend.  He’s more comfortable following James than he’d likely ever admit, and he’s more than aware as to which one of them has the greater knowledge of sailing.  Of fighting a storm.  

Someone sees her.  “Stay inside, ma’am,” she’s told, and she closes the door after a swell sends water splashing everywhere, spraying even her from where she stands.  Thomas hasn’t said a word since she stood up.  Just watched her quietly, miserable in his position.  

Instead of crossing to the opposite end of the cabin, she joins him on the bed.  Sitting at his side.  Placing her hand on his.  He offers her the worst attempt at a smile she thinks she’s ever seen, and she returns it with equal aplomb.  “Suppose it cannot always be clear skies and delightful views,” he comments wryly. 

“No,” she agrees.  “It cannot.” 

Some time ago, Madi cannot remember when exactly, John had told her about the storm that led him to her.  About the men who died on the mast, about his friend who drowned in the hull of their ship while John was too weak to help him.  There are things that they talk about in the darkness of the night when no one is around to hear pain whispered from person to person.  There are things they resolutely only mention once, or not at all, and dare not speak about in the future. 

Thomas’ hand turns over.  His palm rests open and inviting, and she hesitates.  Looking down at it.  A comforting touch on the back of a hand is light and non-intimate.  But this...she bites the inside of her lip.  Slowly, their palms meet.  Slowly, their fingers intertwine.  

It’s a strange feeling, holding Thomas’s hand.  It’s damp from sweat, but arm all the same.  His fingers are calloused around the tips and along the crest.  Years of hard labor giving him a strong grip.  She wonders if he will ever use a stone to rub the callouses free.  She’s never seen him care about such things. 

In truth, she’s uncertain as to how to categorize anything Thomas is.  Even after being imprisoned in England and then again in Georgia, he’s not lost the casual tilt to his words that strike him as a nobleman.  He’s too highly educated to be mistaken as anyone but a lord of some kind.  His vernacular too distinct.  He holds himself with a general sense of importance too.  One that hides the scars that Madi suspect line his body from scalp to sole. 

There are no secrets between her and her husband.  She knows that Thomas was beaten as a child.  But there are scars that were received far more recently than that, and Madi wonders on which ones they are.  On when Thomas will tell John, when he will tell her.  When, and if James will know.  

However.  Most people do not appreciate being analyzed in that way.  She takes care not to stare at faint lines around Thomas’ thumb.  At the strength to his grip that would have been unnatural had he continued living the life he’d been born to live.  She’s heard James call him  _ my lord,  _ and Madi wonders, instead, what Thomas would have looked like dressed in fine silk.  Wearing one of those strange wigs that High Society seemed to find attractive.  She imagines he would have looked just as foolish as any other man in his station. 

The  _ Elysium  _ rocks violently, and they’re thrown backwards together.  Their shoulders hit the wall with a loud bang.  Gravity holds them securely in position, the very pressure on their lungs refusing to abate.  They’re held there in the crux of the swell as sailors scream and yell outside.  Someone shouts  _ man overboard!  _ And Madi’s fingers tighten instinctively around Thomas.  He squeezes back. 

Wind catches a sail and they’re thrown forward now.  Ship righting itself and taking everyone with her.  Falling from the cot, Thomas and Madi hit the ground with a thunk.  Madi’s just about to lift her head when Thomas’ arm wraps around the back of her skull and keeps her face pressed to the ground.  The hanging cot they’d been sitting on only moments before swung dangerously above them, coming far too close to striking her.  

Rain clatters loudly against the windows.  They need to crawl.  Crawl so they’re crouched against the back wall of the captain’s cabin, bracketed in by a bookcase that’s bolted to the floor, and a desk that’s nailed down.  With books held in place by a careful bar positioned before them, they are in a position of relative safety.  

It’s only after they manage this position that Madi realizes Thomas’ arm is around her shoulders and he’s shielding her with his body.  “You need not do so,” she tells him carefully.  He doesn’t appear to have heard her.  Too busy staring at the door, as if any moment someone might burst through it.  Joining the safety of their room, not to be lost in the storm like whichever poor soul that had fallen. 

Madi knows the feeling well.  She can feel it settling in around her.  Trepidation.  Uncertainty.  It’s dark in the cabin, what little light there is is casting shadows in all directions.  She can  _ see _ , certainly, but it’s not easy.  Not comfortable.  For a brief moment, she remembers herself on Woodes Rogers’ ship.  Chained in the hull, waiting for death to take her. 

She flinches away from the thought, and Thomas’ arm holds her closer.  “It’s going to be all right,” he tells her.  A thunder clap booms like a cannon.  Thomas strokes a hand across her skin.  “It’s going to be all right.”  He’d been frightened only moments ago, she knows it.  She saw him.  She saw his uncertainty and his displeasure.  And yet, here he is.  Comforting  _ her.  _

“I know it will be all right,” Madi informs him.  She twists just enough to look at him.  He doesn’t seem surprised, nor taken aback.  He just nods his head.  Holds her still.  

“The storm will pass, it always does.”  The last time a great storm passed, with Flint as a ship’s captain, the Walrus ferried them to Madi’s island.  It seems only appropriate that a great storm triggers the next step of this journey for them all together as well. 

Madi’s wrists sting nonsensically.  She holds them to her chest.  Lets her fingers run circles around them, touch the scars Rogers’ manacles left behind.  She feels her body being turned.  Tucked in against Thomas’ more securely.  He continues to stroke his hand up and down on her arm.  Tending in a way that Madi had always presumed would be her responsibility.

“Do you believe we made the right choice?”  she asks.  She doesn’t clarify which choice she’s inquiring about.  Doesn’t think she need to.  In as silence as deep as one can be on a ship caught in a storm, Thomas ponders her question.

Just after someone shouts a command across the ship, he replies.  “There was once a man named Melibee.”  His voice falters as the storm crashes into the  _ Elysium  _ once again, but he picks up as soon as he gathers his wits.  “And he married a woman named Prudence.”  Madi has heard this story before.  Has seen how John fussed over this tale, over and over again.  Struggling to understand the deeper message while also coming to terms with what the moral was in the first place.  

She read it again when John had gone missing.  She read all the tales again.  Needing something to hold onto him by.  Needing the reminder that he would not have just left this book.  Would not have left her.  Not by choice.  And yet.  Struggling to manage the expectations that were levied on her. 

_ It wasn’t fair,  _ Madi thinks.   _ For mother to trade away my life so easily. _  That’s what it had been.  She had been raised to rule, and as soon as Julius began growing in favor, her role had been redefined.  Julius’ wife.  A place that everyone on the island knew would not be of the same level of importance.  Julius would not allow her the same courtesy that Madi’s father had allowed her mother.  Where John would have let her be the Queen she needed to be, Julius would not have.  And until John had spoken on her behalf, Madi’s mother had  _ agreed  _ to this. 

So, here they are.  Even the storm is better than that.

“Men came to Melibee’s home one day, beating Prudence and his daughter, leaving them for Melibee to find.”  Unbidden, Madi thinks of her mother.  Her people.  The endless rows of dead.  Beaten and shot.  Pressed into slavery and worse.  She sees them chained together.  She sees them strapped to a spike and lashed until dead.  She see—she sees a shadow.  Dark and obscure.  Looming over her with a knife.  Preparing to make her a martyr.  A martyr she long ago accepted as her proper place.  She closes her eyes.  “Melibee faced such great sorrow at the sight of his wife and daughter, he could sobbed and wept.  And then, when prodded by his wife, he summoned a council to discuss how best to handle the situation.  The people urged for war.” 

Gunpowder and smoke chase each other in Madi’s nostrils.  Phantom smells that are meaningless here and now.  They are a ship at sea, not bothered by the fears of battle aside from the one they wage against nature.  And yet, she can smell it.  She can feel the blood on her skin.  She can feel the pain in her heart.  See John falling off the Walrus, legs twisted in netting and sinking to the bottom of the sea.  She can feel her screams in the back of her throat, the feel of Captain Flint’s hand on her shoulder.   _ My friend too… _

“But Prudence argued otherwise.  ‘My lord,’ she cried, ‘I beseech you as earnestly as I dare and can, do not be in too much of a hurry, and for goodness' sake listen to me. For Petrus Alphonsus says, 'Whoever does you right or wrong, do not hasten to repay it; then your friend will be patient and your enemy shall live in dread the longer.' 'He hastens well,' says the proverb, 'who wisely can wait.' There's no profit in wicked haste."’ 

Planning.  Endless planning.  Moving the chest from here to there, summoning allies and reaching communication.  The fear that Billy built in Nassau, inventing  _ Long John Silver  _ and casting her husband as the villain of a narrative that had never been his to begin with.  Twisting his story so he himself fell into a series of movements that were equal parts predictable and surprising.  She can see John and Flint.  Their heads beat toward each other.  Their smiles shared.  Their hearts and mind aligned as one.  Beckoning her to join their stratagem.  Preparing her for a meeting with Teach and Rackham. 

“Prudence argued further that Melibee erred in assembling his counselors. He called so many to the table to discuss his options, that they tripped over themselves by the multitude.  Bringing forth burdensome complaints and meaningless items.  Speaking to you through their anger, their flattery, and their love.  But the voices of the many are not capable of reaching reason, and so the true counsel Melibee should have been listening to—that of his dearest companions, he had become blind to instead.  Even Solomon said that he who interferes with another man’s quarrel or strife is like him who takes a dog by the ears.”

“But this fight,” Madi interjects.  “It was always my fight.” 

“Was it truly?” Thomas asks gently.  She sees the pain and suffering.  She feels her wrists burn.  She feels—she feels hollow.  As if there is so much more that should be within her, but it has long since abandoned her and left her with nothing at all.  There is no blood within her veins, no heart beneath her breast.  She feels empty and without form.  She doesn’t know what to say.  “Your mother feared starting a war against the English.  For fear of what would come of it.  She kept close to her counsel, and she chose to assist James… but the fight itself?  It was not a fight you would have chosen had a man half mad with pain and desperate not to die had not concocted it in a fit of passion before your mother’s eyes.”  

It’s true.  She knows it to be true.  She knows it deep within her.  It’s part of the reason why she made her decision to leave the island.  Part of the reason she’s been able to accept John’s choices.  As difficult as they may be.  “The punishment that Prudence and Melibee decide on is a simple one,” Thomas whispers.  “Disposing of those who harmed them of everything they had, and sending them into exile forever.” 

She thinks of Woodes Rogers on a ship back to London.  Of living the rest of his life in shame and degradation.  The scars on her wrists burn.  “He will live knowing what he has done,” she says softly.  Thomas does not ask for clarification.  He just hums against her head.  “And I will live knowing that we have survived.” 

The door opens to the cabin, and the both look up.  John.  At long last.  

He’s soaked to the bone and swaying as he stands.  But at his back is James.  Ensuring John doesn’t fall as they plod their way across the cabin.  Mad chances a glance outside.  The worst of the storm has passed.  “The men can take it from here,” James sighs.  He moves so naturally.  Offering his shoulder as a brace for John to lean against, then the pair of them crouching together.  

Thomas hasn’t taken his arm from Madi’s shoulder, and yet it doesn’t feel as though he needs to.  John settles in at Madi’s side, and reaches for her jaw.  Tracing it with a too wet finger, turning her mouth toward him.  He kisses her.  It’s every bit as confounding as the weather.  Hard, yet soft.  Desperate yet shy.  Uncertain, but always filled with love.  She meets his eyes.  She had expected to see something.  Pain, perhaps, at the very least.  Instead, there’s almost a feeling of peace about him that she cannot quite understand. 

James settles on Thomas’ other side, and they huddle together through the end of the storm.  John’s men managing what remains of the crisis.  She wants to know who fell overboard.  Wants to know what kind of dignity they will honor the man with.  What they’ll do in the end.  

She leans in closer.  Brow to brow.  Her body so warm in Thomas’ embrace.  “I therefore receive you in my grace,” she murmurs.  “and forgive you utterly for all the offenses, injuries, and wrongs that you have done against me and my family…”  She kisses his brow.  And he shivers.  Unmade just as he had unmade Flint.  

Before John can answer anything else, Thomas finishes the quote. “For undoubtedly if we are sorry and repent the sins and offenses that we have committed in the sight of our Lord God, he is so generous and merciful that he will forgive us our sins and bring us to the bliss that never ends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can read the modern english prose version of the Tale of Melibee here: http://english.fsu.edu/canterbury/melibee.html


	10. The Shipman's Tale

The hands that James and Thomas hired to tend to their home and livestock while they were gone had truly started believing they’d never return.  Madi watches with a degree of fascinated interest as they rush to their employers.  True happiness reflecting on their faces as they greet the former most feared pirate of legend and his partner.  

Arriving in Savannah without suspicion took effort.  The  _ Elysium  _ ferried them to shore in a launch some miles away from the Savannah port.  Goodbyes given and final words spoken.  With their belongings carefully arranged in a portable fashion, they found their way to a road and started walking. 

Madis’ shoulders ached, and her back had been strained on the walk.  Their belongings difficult to carry over such an extended period of time. Though she took her discomfort in matters of perspective.  By the time they crested the final hill, she’d begun to fear John may well need to be carried the rest of the way.  Sweat dripped from his face, dampening his fever flush skin like the kiss of a rainstorm.  His hair clung to his neck, and he’d long ago stopped attempting to speak as he forced himself forward.  

Only an hour ago there’d been a heated debate between Thomas, James, and Israel regarding John’s ability to keep pressing on.  All of them ignoring John’s stubborn pride as they finished the final leg of the journey.  

As they made their final approach, however, Madi’s grateful that the servants caused the distraction they did.  It gives John the chance to slip by, force his way into the front door of the house, and collapse onto a wooden bench with far less dignity than he would have preferred.  The crutch slips from his hand, blood dripping to the floor from where he’d torn open a callous on his palm.  Madi drops her things not far away, and scans the room for any signs of fresh water.  

She isn’t surprised that the basins aren’t full.  There’d be no reason to supply water to an empty house after all.  But Israel does what he always does in these situations.  He withdraws a flask from somewhere about his person and he shoves it into John’s hands.  Insulting him the whole while.  

“You look like shit, little king,” he growls even as John chokes on the drink.  His hands are shaking too badly to be of use, and Israel needs to steady the flask.  Hold it up and tip it gently between John’s lip.  Madi slides closer.  Crouching down so she’s at the same level as her husband.  

Pain is something they’ve both become intimately familiar with in the past few years.  The pain that reflects on John’s face now isn’t nearly so foreign as to cause her fear.  She presses the back of her hand to John’s brow.  Feels how hot his face has become, and rallies herself to her cause.  Murmuring for Israel to stay with John, she stands. 

A quick look through the house finds clean linen that can be used to bind John’s hand until it heals.  She gives it to Israel before stepping outside.  She covers her eyes from the brightness of the sun.  Scans for a well that she spies not too far away.  Fetching a bucket, she hurries toward it.  Uncaring of how her own body aches from its journey.  How exhaustion curls against her heart and threatens to pull her into an abyss.  

Filling her bucket is a matter of determination. The rope stings against her sweaty palms, and her limbs reject her request for their assistance.  She must struggle every step of her journey, must force the issue regardless of how simple the task may seem.  By the time she’s beaten her mission into submission and returned to the house, James and Thomas are there. 

Israel is sulking by the window, but Thomas is leaning close to John.  Talking to him gently in that soothing voice of his that could charm and bewitch even the most disinterested parties.  James takes the water from her quickly enough.  Sets about boiling it and getting it ready as Madi returns to John’s side. 

“I’ll be fine,” John murmurs.  His eyes are fluttering though, and his fever hasn’t abated at all since they’ve arrived.  Despite lying in the cool shade, it seems to have only gotten worse.  

“We didn’t save you from that island so you could die in our parlor,” Thomas informs him primly, tucking a strand of wet hair behind John’s ear.  Equal parts concerning and predictable, John doesn’t reply.  He’s too tired to reply, and they don’t expect more of him anyway.  Thomas moves to allow Madi to take his place at John’s head.  He joins James in the kitchen, relearning his own house so he can assist in whatever way he can.  

Someone starts a fire, and Madi tries to remind herself they made the right decision. 

That this is home. 

It’s where she wants to be. 

 

***

 

John sleeps for the next three days.  His fever breaks after the first, but exhaustion and pain pulls him down and no one has the heart to move him.  As John sleeps, Madi familiarizes herself with their new home.  In a way, it’s strange walking without guards.  Without someone constantly following her footsteps.  Preparing to defend her to their dying breath.

She walks the land that Thomas and James have acquired.  From point to point, following the treeline where she can.  The men they hired to tend the place while they were gone watch her warily as she passes, but no one speaks to her.  The silence is comforting in a way.  Giving her a chance to organize her thoughts.  Provide perspective.  

Flint starts working again on the second day.  Answering reports from his staff that there were a few lines that needed to get fixed and some hens that needed better protection.  Israel grumbles about fixing up the attic to the barn as well, leaving Thomas to tend to John alone if Madi decided to keep walking. 

“He’ll be fine,” Thomas counters, drawing a thin blanket over John’s shoulders and placing a book well within his reach.  It doesn’t sit right with her.  Leaving John with no one to address him if he needs assistance.  He’s stubborn enough to get himself into trouble if someone isn’t there to curtail his enthusiasm.  And he’s foolish enough not to tell them about it. “He’s an adult,” Thomas insists, smiling and gesturing toward the door.  “At some point he needs to face the consequences of his own actions.  Israel’s just outside.” 

And that’s how, gently, Thomas manages to get her to leave the house and walk with him to his store.  It’s not a terribly long walk.  Particularly not considering the trek they’d made from the inlet with the  _ Elysium  _ to the house.  Then, they’d been avoiding a whole city and its traffic.  Now, they’re just going to town. 

The store Madi’s heard so much about is locked, but Thomas opens it up with an iron wrought key.  He smiles brightly when he examines his store space.  Running his fingers over the shelving and looking at his tools.  “You do not have a lodger?  Who looks after the business while you are at home?”  It’d be considered standard practice to live in the same building one worked.  Thomas seems to almost make it a point to separate them. 

The books on the shelves don’t appear to have much value, and the tools are more unique than useful.  Flat pieces of metal that Thomas explains is used for keeping the pages roughly the same size.  Blades that slice through documents.  Endless spools of thread.  “It’s not a particularly expensive paradise for thieves.  Anything of value is easily moved back to the house.  Most, don’t think to use books for much except kindling, however.  

“And you make a good enough income to survive?” It seems illogical.  Books are a luxury item.  She knows there are cloth merchants who have poorer lives than James and Thomas.  Still, she picks up a dusty cover arranged on Thomas’ desk.  She wipes it clean with absent flicks of her wrist. 

“We have an income from the farm, and James’ supplies to assist us if need be.  Now that we have more hands,” he smiles as if he’s said a joke, though Madi doesn’t understand it, “we can look into other avenues of expanding our yearly salary.  I looked into the construction of a press, and there isn’t a steady paper in print around this area.”  From how he speaks, he’s entirely unconcerned.  

He collects his tools and he sets about oiling the metal.  Rubbing down the wood.  Cleaning his workbench from dust and debris.  A bird’s broken in at some point and made a nest in the top corner of the room.  Thomas scowls at it and wags his finger at it threateningly, but doesn’t make any attempts to dislodge his freeloader and seems content to let it chirp at him unhappily.  It doesn’t like them, and they’re not particularly fond of it, but they seem to have come to an alliance with the cantankerous beast in so far as if it keeps its poop to itself, it’s allowed to stay.

They sweep and clean the whole shop.  Dust off the shelves and polish the glass.  The windows have a bit of grime that’s plastered onto it, and it takes more than a few scrapes with a stone to get it off.  

The heat of the day becomes a sweltering miasma by midafternoon.  Thomas is sweating through the loose linen of his shirt, and Madi’s taken to pulling at her neckline to allow air into her garment.  They retire before the day is done, walking slowly back to the house where John greets them with fresh water from the well.  Even the water feels warm against Madi’s lips, but she groans audibly when John takes a wet cloth and lays it along the back of her neck. 

He looks better now that he’s had some rest, and despite the heat of the day-- his fever doesn’t seemed to have returned.  In fact, he seems in better spirits than she is.  “How’s your pain?” Thomas asks as he refills everyone’s glasses and eyes John with a calculating expression.  As though he’s trying to work out just how much he’s been moving without them there to monitor him. 

Perhaps it’s the exhaustion from the heat and the day, but Madi cannot truly find it in her heart to feel angry about it.  Thomas had a point, whether they were there to watch John or not--he was bound to find trouble of some sort.  And he does look improved, even if he shouldn’t have been up and about.  “Manageable,” is all John has to say about it.  His eyes crinkle in the corners and his lips quirk upward.  As if he’s sharing a joke with them that they have yet to understand. 

James joins them not long after, fetching home some vegetables from the garden and some salted meat from the town.  He shares miscellaneous anecdotes about the state of their farm and their prospects, and Madi finds herself captivated by the sense of strange domesticity of it all.  She’d known, of course, that this is what James and Thomas had built.  She’d seen it for herself weeks before.  And yet, seeing it now, again, feels different. 

Something trembles beneath her skin, a kind of maddening desire to do something.  Say something.  She wants to move, she wants to fight.  She thinks of the people that she’d been responsible for, the responsibilities she’d needed to tend to.  She’d had endless tasks that kept her occupied throughout the day, and there’d been no time to fret about the heat or the need for water.  There’d been no time to consider her husband missing for months or the pain that lingered in the back of her mind like a tumor incapable of being removed. 

James and Thomas laugh with each other, they trade stories and find enjoyment out of the simplest things.  Thomas tells them all about the animals in the shop.  John groans at the thought of them mussing up the books.  He’s told not to apologize.  He’s told he’s more important. 

_ This is a family,  _ Madi thinks.  A family that has grown out of hardship.  A weed that has fought and clawed its way up from the ground, doing whatever it can to survive.  A dandelion, being cast about in the wind until it finally finds its way home.  

There were over three hundred people on Madi’s island.

She traded them away for three.  

Standing up sharply, she barely notices as the cloth John gave her falls from her shoulders.  As the room snaps into sudden silence.  She walks from the room in a daze.  Stepping out onto the porch, and then walking down the steps.  Into the path leading to the main road.  Towards town.  She walks.  She needs to walk.  Walk until she cannot walk any longer.  Until she can sink into the sea and let it spirit her away.  Back to her island, back to her people, back to--

She’s started to cry.

“It’s this damnable heat.” 

Madi flinches, spinning around on her heel to stare blankly at Israel Hands.  He looks absurd.  She’s never seen him in anything less than a thick coat and trousers, but apparently this temperature is too great for him.  His light shirt and torn sleeves reveal endless tracks of scars up his arm and across the span of his chest.  His legs revealing more than a few nicks and long healed abrasions.  Swatting at her eyes, Madi struggles to free herself of the tears, but Israel hardly seems to care. 

Hands keeps talking, as though he’d never stopped.  He crosses the space between them. Says, “Makes fools of us all,” as he squints at Madi’s face.  “Whatchu doin’ out here then?” 

It’s impossible to put into words what the feeling is.  She wants to move, wants to get out.  Her mind is twisting in on itself and she doesn’t know what to do.  What to say.  The four walls of that house felt oppressive, despite its open windows and good company.  The trees and their overgrowth feel wrong.  The ground beneath her feet feels unbalanced, and though she knows she is steady where she stands: she feels like a ship lost at sea.  Twisting and tumbling amongst the waves. 

She cannot truly tell if they’ve left the storm at all, or if they are still there, catastrophically lost amongst the winds of the tempest.  “Is this what this life is like?” she wonders aloud.  

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it’s been  _ one  _ day.  You’ve already decided enough’s enough after one day?  What’d the shit fucker--”

“--don’t call him that--”

“Say that was so bad?”  It always comes down to words.  Madi wonders if Israel could even consider Thomas being violent, but in truth: she cannot either.  Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Thomas holds himself as one who is above such things.  His dealings with Israel were specific and isolated: easily forgotten for the most part.  Perhaps it’s why he  _ is  _ so dangerous.  Why there is a thread of uncertainty that still lingers about him. 

He could do great violence if he decided to act upon the darkness she is certain lies within.  No man survives as he’s survived without a well of darkness that runs deep and unobscured.  Yet Thomas seems almost unaffected by it.  Ambivalent to it.  He frets over books and shelves and simple things.  He recites poetry and he smiles without strain. 

Israel doesn’t suspect Thomas could have touched her, and indeed he had not.  He wants to know what Thomas  _ said,  _ because if there is one weapon that Thomas uses with precise accuracy and skill it is his words.  He sharpens his tongue like a sword, he runs a whet stone along his blade and keeps it ready for battle.  Sheathing it behind a smile that tears down borders and defences so that he can lash into the body and make it quick.  

What did he say? 

“Nothing.”  Because he hadn’t been anything but polite.  Because John had met them at the door and Thomas had known he’d be fine.  Because James laughed and Thomas teased, and this is what happiness should feel like, and yet she’s here in the road with her heart hammering in her chest, and she feels lost instead of glad.

It has been one day, and already she feels as though the world has been taken from her control.  Taken from the boundaries of the plan she had set for herself, and been reformed into something she hadn’t been expecting.  She had thought she’d considered all the options, all the possibilities, but perhaps she hadn’t.  Perhaps she hadn’t thought things through at all and instead—

“You people,” Hands huffs.  He marches toward her and pokes her firmly in the chest, just above her breasts.  Her lips press tight and she feels them dip low at the corners.  “You used to be a queen.  The daughter of a queen. You can’t just walk away from all that power and expect it all to be fine.” 

“Flint did.  John did.” 

“John’s out of his mind with pain, and Flint’s a fucking exception in all things.  But you didn’t see him out there in the storm.  He misses it, he just doesn’t give a shit about it so long as his husband’s there.”  Madi’s tempted to tell him that Thomas is not James’ husband, but in truth...there isn’t a better word for them.  

They are soul mates.  Created for one another.  Destined for one another.  James was lost without Thomas, and now, he has him.  Everything else pales in comparison to that love and devotion.  In the face of it, Madi cannot help but wonder if her own devotion to her own husband is left wanting in the face of their bond.  If somehow, her relationship is made weaker as it stands in the light of James and Thomas. 

Such things are inconsequential of course, but the thought lingers.  Lingers with the other thoughts she’s had.  The months she spent ignoring John’s disappearance.  Casting it to the side.  Forgetting about him as best she could so she could focus on the daily problems that she still needed to address.

Problems that she has absolved herself from now.  Problems that are no longer her concern, but remain ever present.  She cannot be rid of them.  They seep into her and cling against her skin.  She chokes against the feelings that dwell within her body.  “Follow me,” Hands huffs then.  Scowling and pushing at her shoulder.  He motions on down the path, and she follows him.  Jaw set and opinions kept firmly to herself. 

Her relationship with Israel Hands is a contentious one.  He has always been her husband’s protector, and in turn he has always protected her.  When Julius pushed, Hands ensured that those pushes never came with any sort of physical entanglement.  He ensured that Julius’ faction kept to themselves, that John’s crew didn’t desert when they had every opportunity to do so. 

She trusts him.  In as much as anyone can trust a man like Israel Hands.  But when he leads her to a crossroads, she stops and stares as he motions vaguely to a space of cleared ground.  As though it should mean something to her.  It means nothing.  “S’ the edge of Flint’s land,” he informs her.  She waits.  Letting her mind parce that information.  Letting it seep into her bones.  

She hadn’t thought James had enough money to purchase such an estate.  Nor had she thought the land could reach as far from the house as it did.  “Where did he get the funds for such a thing?” she wonders aloud.  Scrimping and saving from privateering would have led to a modest income, but this...this is more than she’d thought. 

“Came this way earlier, with  _ him. _ ”  He still talks about James like it’s a curse to so much as mention the name.  He’s still bothered that John chose James over fortune.  Chose a life over a monarchy.  John could have made all their dreams come true.  He chose his own instead.  “Said he was thinkin’ of building here.  An inn.”

An inn. 

She tilts her head back to look at the trees nearby.  They’d be hard to cut down but the lumber could be useful.  They’ll need saws and supplies.  More workers than they have now.  More money than Madi assumed that James had.  But not more than she assumes John has.  He could do it.  If he wanted.  She glances at Israel. 

“You’re not built to take orders from someone,” Hands tells her.  “You’re meant to build something up with your own two hands and breathe life into this world.  So do it.  For Christ’s sake.  Stop looking at all the things you don’t understand and start making a decision.  This was your choice.   _ Live  _ with it.”

He leaves her there, though she doubts that he’s too far away.  Likely just around the bend, watching her in case something happens.  But he gives her the illusion of solitude, and she takes that moment to look at the plot of land.  The little stretch that sits at the corner of a crossroads.  And she allows herself to dream. 

 

***

 

It’s late when she returns home.  The air’s gone cool and someone’s lit a fire.  It’s still perhaps too warm for such a thing, but the fire’s been lit already and there’s not much to be done about it now.  She slides into the house gracefully, ever aware of a shadow stalking her steps.  One that deviates to the barn only once she’s inside.  Moments later a candle is lit and a warm glow fills the space above the barn.  The spare room turning into a home once again. 

Thomas and James are asleep already.  Or at least they’re not in the front room.  John is still lying on the bench, but he’s propped up on pillows.  There’s a pitcher of water nearby and a book in his lap.  He’s reading it slowly.  Eyes drooping ever so slightly as he goes.  

Kneeling at his side, she glances to see what part he’s at.  Curious at how far he’s gotten today.  It’s the Shipman’s Tale.  Fitting, almost.  In a way.  It makes her smile as she slowly moves to rest her head against John’s shoulder.  Kneeling as she is, it’s an awkward transition, but he doesn’t begrudge her the action.  Only shifts to make it more accessible for her to use. “What do you think of building an inn at the crossroads?” she asks, even as her eyes absorb the middle english poem.  

His lips twitch every so slightly and he leans over to kiss her crown.  “Have I ever told you,” he asks quietly, “that I happen to be a very good cook?” 

He is lying through his teeth, but smiling at her with such tender affection she cannot help but feel at peace.  “I was raised to tend.”  It’s important he knows this, that he understand.  She cannot sit idly by.  Cannot clean a bookstore and wait for someone to come with an order.  Wait for James to return from whatever it is he does in the fields.  Wait.  Wait. 

She needs to be in motion.  Needs to listen to voices and people, needs to be involved with others and know how best to manage the problems that come to her.  She has no desire to be Eleanor Guthrie, but she sees the appeal to an inn more so than she would like to admit.  A bed for weary travelers to rest in.  A tavern for locals to share their trade and conversation in.  A stopping point at the crossroads where any decision could be made. 

“This wife is not afeared nor afraid,” John tells her, closing his book as he modifies the tale for her benefit.  

“No,” she tells him.  “I am not.”  Nor will she ever stay behind again.  That’s her choice, and this is her debt to pay. 


	11. The Parson's Tale

The inn takes time to build.  Madi cannot help but giving John a look when he produces his safe box of jewels and gems.  He doesn’t even bother looking sheepish.  Just smiles at her, magnanimous expression almost hiding the pain still nipping at his eyes.  His palm’s formed a significant callous across the center and his balance has improved tremendously, but he’s far from healthy and everyone in their household knows it. 

Still, he ignores them utterly when it comes to walking about, and he swings his crutch to and fro like it’s an extension of his body.  James seems to be pretending that he doesn’t notice John’s ridiculous decision to move about before he’s ready.  Either that, or he’s simply grown used to John’s ways.  Madi remembers when they first arrived on her island, John barely capable of staying upright but still moving forward.  Her men had informed her of how John fell several times on the walk from the shore.  How he leaned against his captain for support, and how his captain had allowed it without question.

Where Thomas fusses more than John seems to care for, and Madi merely informs him of his idiocy, James is resigned to it all.  He walks at John’s side at a sedate pace, neither criticizing him nor offering assistance.  It is, perhaps, what starts to mend whatever has been left unsaid between them.  For which, Madi knows, there is much. 

She watches quietly as they engage in halting conversation.  John never seeming to know how to say what he means, James never bothering to try to find out.  She wonders if it’s obvious to Thomas how terribly awkward it is for James and John at times.  How Thomas’ presence is a balm, but also a crutch in its own way.  John becomes terribly subdued in Thomas’ company.  Treating him much like a son would to their revered father.  Madi remembers interacting with her own father like this.  With endless respect and kindness.  

Whatever arguments John and James might need to have with one another, they do not have so long as Thomas is there.  So long as she is there.  Madi could almost pretend that such arguments needn’t be had at all.  They’re living together.  They’re co-existing side by side.  They laugh and tease and play.  They work and trade stories.  They read books in the dark.  And yet, there’s a strange shift between them both.  A hesitancy that John never bothered with in the past.  An uncertainty that James maintains despite the good things that have happened.

And, as they always do whenever they are dissatisfied with something, they refuse to speak of it. 

Israel assists John and James with hiring workers for the inn.  John sits out in the sun with Madi and they plan the construction.  They suck on the fruit juice of watermelons and cantaloupes, and not once does anyone mention anything at all about how when James makes a command to their help, John falls perfectly into place in issuing that order and maintaining their workers’ morale. 

“They manage their workers like a crew,” Madi informs Thomas one evening.  Israel and John are still outside. James is inspecting the fresh lumber that’s been cut.  Thomas doesn’t care much for working in the sun.  He complains it’s turned his hair gray and given him wrinkles before his time.  It’s a pleasant lie to tell himself.  Madi does not refute it for his benefit. 

“Not surprising,” Thomas informs her with a casual shrug of his shoulders.  He’s frowning at the meat that they have to prepare for dinner tonight.  Squinting at it like it’s about to wage war on him.  His knife is held awkwardly in his hand.  Sweat is beading at Thomas’ brow and she pours a glass of water for him.  The heat has truly been terrible these past few days.  

He gifts her with a smile, sipping at the water before returning to the task at hand.  He slices between the joints of the chicken.  Separating wings and legs from the body. He’s quick and efficient about it, well practiced in his motions despite the strangeness of his form.  She wonders vaguely where he learned how to prepare such a meal.  Doubtless it came from after his time as a nobleman. 

Outside, there are voices echoing on the wind.  Bickering tones that are too childish to be involving Israel.  She can hear her husband, though the other voice eludes her.  “Is it not?” she muses absently, spurring Thomas on even as her mind wanders.  He doesn’t seem to take notice.  This is how their conversations always seem to go.  Slow and perhaps a touch unorthodox.  Less of a conversation as a way of filling the silence.  One partner taking a step forward and the other slowly responding in the appropriate way.  The tempo of their dance so effortlessly slow. 

No, not effortlessly.  Maddeningly, Madi is certain, to an outside observer.  It’s too slow for some.  But not for them.  For them, it’s perfect.  Thomas finishes his cuts.  He segments the meat and hums thoughtfully under his breath.  “When you only know one way of doing something, you tend to use the same methodology in all aspects of your life.” 

She considers the philosophy, and is struck by the idea of him presenting his theories to rows of sugarcane encouraging it to pluck itself for his benefit.  It’s perhaps a cruel thing to think, and so she keeps her mouth shut.  Decorum had been impressed upon her, and she knows better than to let her mind speak its thoughts outloud. 

Thomas seems to have not noticed her almost faux-pas.  He’s still dedicated to their meal.  Eyes down, bangs in his face.  His shirt sleeves are rolled up and she can see the long expanse of his neck as he inspects his work.  Unlike Israel, he doesn’t have the same signs of agony rippled out across his skin.  

“What was Bethlem Royal Hospital?” she asks.  Thomas’ knife snaps through his meat with a decisive thunk.  He meets her eyes.  For a moment, she believes he will lie.  Or rather, he will redirect their conversation elsewhere.  He’s a talented hand at that.  

When John first told her of Thomas, he’d said the name of the hospital as if it were something to be hated.  Feared.  His nose twitched with displeasure and there was something almost furious lurking beneath his eyes.  He didn’t explain the hospital to her, and he quickly moved on from it.  She could gather that it was a place not to be taken lightly, but beyond that...she knew not what it was.  

A hospital is a building where those in need of medicine go to for healing.  Doctors tend to their patients, and heal ailments that plague the infirm.  From the context, she can understand that Thomas had been taken to the hospital due to his affiliation with James.  But it doesn’t explain much more beyond that.  She dare not ask James, for he’s categorically too volatile to discuss such things with.  John would have told her if he’d been so inclined, and she has no desire to press him on such matters. 

Thomas, perhaps, she should feel more kindness toward, but he’s the one who had gone to the hospital.  He’s the one she wants to see the truth from.  The others can give their opinions on rumors and their impressions on the name.  They cannot tell her the truth.  

Thomas’ skin is unblemished of injury.  There are scars on his feet, but those are from his father.  There are flesh discolorations along the paths of his clothes, but those are natural and hardly worth noting.  

The chicken lays forgotten between them, and Thomas inspects Madi’s face.  She lets him see her.  She is not afraid.  The bickering outside has turned to laughter and Madi imagines the dispute has been settled.  Whatever it once was. 

“Bethlem Royal Hospital was a hospital in London built to tend and care for those who were afflicted by matters of an improper mind.”  Thomas’ voice is clinical.  He unflinchingly meets Madi’s eyes.  She thinks that it’s easy to believe James or John, or even Israel, are the most brave of them all.  With their conquests in battle and their extensive reputations for violence.  But this is an altogether different kind of bravery.  Unmatched by their counterparts. 

“Patients in the hospital suffer from any kind of abnormality in the brain.  Some are truly dispossessed of their senses, others are of morally questionable character.”  Such as himself.  He doesn’t add that.  He leaves it for her to determine on her own.  He won’t name what his  _ crime  _ was as a crime, because he still doesn’t consider it as such.  Nor should he. 

She has been privileged to know James before and after his reunion with Thomas.  She has seen the burden that they have been forced to share.  She has witnessed the joy they bring one another.  There is nothing sinful between them.  Nor should their actions be considered inappropriate.  The comforting words die on her tongue, though.  She merely waits.  For Thomas brings silence in the quiet.  He speaks well when not interrupted. 

The kitchen area a salon for him to discuss his thoughts.  Once he starts, he’s difficult to make stop.  She doesn’t want him to stop.  She wants him to continue.  She wants to  _ know.  _ “The hospital’s treatment of such undesirables is one that is often in debate amongst those in civilized society.  One one hand, the devil must be cast out of these souls.  On the other, there’s a simple matter of dignity and good sense that is often ignored in the face of such an onslaught.  The most modern techniques for the abolition of evil is employed with the greatest care.  Cold baths for soothing the feverish madness of the mind, blood letting to remove the foul sickness from within.  Chaplains for the soul.  Food is monitored to ensure that there is no over indulgence.  Fasts imposed to purge any malevolent blockages within the gut.” 

Thomas redirects his attention to the chicken now.  Wry smile spreading across his face.  His butchery recommences and he does so without the slightest.  “Belligerent patients are secured for their own well being, some immobilized for so long they’ve not stood on their own for many years.  But the true feature of Bedlam, as it’s known to both patients and society alike, that sets it apart from others, is that it is open for public viewing.” 

Madi frowns.  “I do not understand.” 

Pieces of meat are sectioned off and set to the side to be mixed with the rest of their food.  Bones placed on the opposite end of the table to make a stock from later.  “The public is welcome, and even encouraged to go to Bedlam and observe the treatment of its patients.  So as to remind themselves of what should happen if they too fall victim to vice, sin, or insanity.”  Madi’s mouth goes dry.  “Friends, family, and strangers alike will gather to look at the tortured soul of the inept and incompetent.  They will comment on the degradation, they will add to the humiliation.” He motions vaguely with the knife.  “They will remind you of your foolishness, and comfort themselves on their superiority.  Not unlike a menagerie for the insane and infirm.”

“You are not unduly affected by these events,” she states with certainty.  There have been no nightmares that she has been aware of.  No signs of shying away from places of public viewing.  He meets with customers without noticing their presence.  He has windows to his shop that allow pedestrians to look in.  He speaks without shying away, fearful of the sounds or the possibilities that could be made into reality.  

Thomas finishes his preparation.  He turns his back as he addresses the fire he’d lit some time ago.  Stoking it to the proper heat and preparing to mix in the stew.  He keeps his head bowed over the pot for several long moments.  There’s no strain on his features.  If anything, his eyes are sad.  Contemplative of a time long past.  “I’ve come to terms with it,” he tells her eventually.  Stilted in the way their conversations usually are.  “I have a family to tend to now.” 

A family who has burned the world to the ground all in his name.  Who has taken lives and waged wars to preserve the memory of him.  Madi wonders if such a family is a blessing to a man who has been the subject of so much unwanted attention.  She steps forward.  Places a hand on his arm.  He glances at it.  Eyes reptilian in their movement.  “And we also tend to you.”  John’s voice is coming closer.  James with it.  She squeezes Thomas’ arm.  “I am here, should you wish to tell me more.”  Then she steps away.  The door opens and James snarks at John about something. 

Madi turns to greet them, and stands frozen in place.  She hears Thomas let out a loud exhalation of something behind her.  A puffing laugh that he obviously attempted to hide.  He transforms it into anot so subtle cough.  She need not look back to know his eyes are twinkling.  Bright starlight blue dancing in the dim lighting of their home. 

Someone has shorn John’s messy hair.  Cropping it to his ears.  A razor’s been taken to his face, removing any sign of beard or mustache he once had.  He looks as he’s never looked to Madi before.  Young and full of life.  The shirt he wears is one of James’ and is far too big for his body.  He’s got it tucked into his breeches, but it sags over his hips.  His sleeves are rolled up and his foot is in a soft cloth shoe that looks poorer than anything Madi knows they could afford. 

He’s a child in her eyes.  Forcibly removed from the dark persona of Long John Silver and remade in the form of this boy.  “John lost a bet, didn’t you John?”  James teases, far too proud of himself to have been innocent in the creation of John’s appearance. 

“John is perfectly capable of explaining himself without your prodding,” John snarks.  He shifts his weight on his crutch and then meets Madi’s eyes.  Batting his lashes at her as though it would impress her with his picture of innocence.  “John,” because they’re incapable of discussing this seriously and so he  _ must  _ continue the use of third person, “has been horribly set upon by one he’d once called a friend.” 

It’s a tease that would have been sore and out of place some months ago.  One that is still tenderly given if the quick glance toward James is to be believed.  John’s still uncertain how it will be received, though he need not worry.  James tugs on one of John’s too short locks and keeps smiling regardless.  “Am I not a friend?  For showing you the error of your ways so efficiently?  And not leaving you to suffer so.” There’s an undercurrent beneath each word, a second conversation happening betwixt it all.  

Madi holds her breath for the next line or comment, but John’s words fall silent.  He pulls away from James and hobbles toward Madi instead.  “Do you love me still?” He says it in jest again, but Madi wonders if they’ll ever be free of these hidden conversations.  If they’ll ever find peace amongst each other.  

Slowly touching the springiest of John’s shorn locks, it bounces almost joyfully beneath her careful attention.  “I’m uncertain, what do you think Mr. McGraw?  Shall it grow back?” Turning to Thomas, she’s pleased to see that their previous conversation shows no signs of inflicting turmoil on the man.  He’s smiling at them all.  Pleased beyond measure. 

“However long did it take to grow in the first place I wonder.  Six months and it hardly seemed to grow much more than it did before.” There were a few spices that needed to be added to the meal and he turned to address it while James guffawed.  Cheerily informing them that John’s head produced all the hair and his chin only grew it when it gave up on the rest of him.  

Even as his face flushed under their attention, John begins to mutter about how everyone is against him.  He’s charming in his embarrassment, though there seems to be no sense of shame there.  He actually looks happier than he’s looked in a while.  Some of the feverish quality he’s maintained since their arrival has dissipated.  His neck is no longer drenched with sweat from his thick curtain of curls that trapped heat against his skin. 

Madi goes to her husband’s side.  She wraps an arm around his back, reveling in the look on his face.  He’s surprised by her.  Startled by her sudden show of affection.  He even shies slightly away, uncertain as to how he’s meant to proceed.  She cannot recall when she’d last known John to be uncertain about anything before that damn chest and all its cursed gold came into their lives.  

He’s always been a man who knows exactly what he wants and devines how he can get it.  But now he startles and shies, he casts his dice into the world and he hopes for the best.  Gambling with his soul and their affections as easily as he breathes.  She holds him to her until he relaxes in her arms.  Until he wraps an arm around her as well.  Letting her feel some of his weight as it shifts position.  Letting her hold him when he is unbalanced.  Letting her bear the burden too. 

“Where has my no good pirate gone?”  she asks, and he smiles at her.  Relaxing more and more.  

“He’s retired from the account, I’m afraid,” he laments airily. 

“Ah well, it is for the best.” 

“Do you think so?” he muses.  Outside there’s the sound of a goat bleating angrily and James goes to yell at Israel about his promise in not bothering their livestock.  

“I think so,” Madi agrees, just as James and Israel start growling insults over the fence.  Behind them, dinner keeps cooking.  They have all the time in the world. 

 

***

 

Madi cannot sleep.  

John’s sprawled out on his back, limbs flopped in every direction.  He told her once that he used to sleep on his side, but after he’d lost his leg it’d been too uncomfortable.  It took him ages to grow used to sleeping on his back, and while he was working that problem he spent many sleepless nights staring at the ceiling.  Cursing the world.  

When she’d thought him dead after their first assault on Nassau, there had been several nights where she and James sat side by side.  Looking out toward the water.  Trying to determine what the correct path would be.   _ He was a terrible bunkmate,  _ James told her one evening.  They’d shared a bottle of rum between themselves.  Set apart from the others.  Their one moment to grieve for the life they weren’t allowed to grieve openly for.  Their closest friend and companion had taken from them, but they had been forced to pretend they felt nothing.  For the good of the mission. 

Madi recalls James sighing against the mouth of the bottle.  His lips caressing the edge as he shook his head in melancholy fondness.   _ Kept tossing and turning for hours every night. _  She’s never known that side of John.  Her John has always been still in his sleep.  Still as a corpse.  Sprawled out like he’d been shot and left to die.  Head tilted to the side.  Sometimes barely breathing.  He didn’t even snore. 

She hadn’t argued against James’ opinion of her husband.  Just listened to him reminisce.  A priest taking confession.  A doctor listening to the ramblings of the mad.  It’s not her place to change the memories that someone has of another person.  Not her place to comment or judge.  Her place is to listen, and she listens well. 

Lying beside her too still husband, now, she listens to the sound of his heart beating beneath her ear.  She cannot sleep.  It’s been hours since they turned in for the night.  The house is still too warm for comfort.  The heat wave will break soon, everyone is certain of it.  The air feels thick with water.  A storm is on its way.  The crops will need the water soon.  They’ll need the extra burst of wet.  Just enough to carry them through the season.  There is only so much irrigation can do.  The plants need more. 

Something creaks down the hall, and Madi sits up.  Listens as a door opens and shuts.  As soft feet pad on by.  As metal touches metal and movement continues.  Whoever it is is trying to remain quiet.  They are doing a decent job at it, but they’re clearly not entirely successful.  Glancing toward John, Madi slips away.  Watching to be certain he’s not moved.  

He has a tendency to sleep through anything.  Once he’s finally gone to bed, he’s there for hours.  Unmoving until he is needed again.  Strange how he can work for days straight with no sleep, but in times like this he just ceases to exist or matter.  His body locking him in place until it’s had its fill. 

She steps into the hallway. 

Following the noise, she turns a bend.  Thomas is there, refilling a mug of water.  Looking out the window to the dark exterior of the night.  There’s nothing to be seen at this hour.  She can hardly see  _ him  _ as it is.  But it is certainly Thomas.  The shoulders are too narrow for James.  The posture too delicate. 

Not that  _ delicate  _ is a word that adequately explains Thomas McGraw.  His hand is trembling ever so slightly as he sips at the water.  His posture growing more stiff the more she watches.  It’s almost storylike.  How he looks.  How he transforms before her.  Slowly the tremble fades to nothingness.  The tension dissipates.  When he finally deigns to look over his shoulder and see who’s watching him, there is nothing to suggest he’d been bothered by her presence at all. 

Her words from earlier haunt her.   _ Not unduly affected.   _

She feels like a fool. 

Any man can rage against the world.  Can swear and hiss and fight against those who watch him.  Any man can glare at their tormentors and growl at their prosecutors.  Any man can fight, or cower beneath them.  Thomas never did any of that.  He is placidity in his nature.  But his calm appearance of nonchalance is not indicative of his own fears.

He  _ is  _ afraid.  

He  _ is  _ affected. 

He merely refuses to let the world know it.  Refuses to let them see.  “I owe you an apology,” she tells him.  He smiles.  He looks like John.  For a brief moment, she sees their smiles overlapping.  There are lies in those smiles.  Lies that are so easy to believe because they seem so genuine.  So sincere.  

“There is no need,” he assures.  

“There is much need.”  She steps closer.  He doesn’t move.  He doesn’t grow tense.  He doesn’t show any signs of wishing for her to depart.  He stays still, and she cannot help but think that there’s a deep need for many things.  “Shall you walk with me?”

“James will worry.”  Not John.  John will sleep until morning.  Israel will either ignore them entirely or stalk their journey to ensure they are well.  But James will worry endlessly for them.  

“Tell him you’ve gone,” she suggests.  Thomas glances at the cup in his hand.  He sighs.  Sets it down on the table, and then trudges over to his bedroom door.  She listens to the quiet murmur of voices.  Thomas joins her not long after.  He’s changed into a fresh set of clothes.  A coat on despite the warmth of the night.  She slides her feet into her shoes, and he fetches a lantern. 

They step outside together and make their way down the path to the main road.  Neither saying a word.  She wonders what he told James.  How he described it to him.  A midnight stroll isn’t the norm for them, and so she is somewhat surprised he didn’t come out with Thomas.  Perhaps he took matters to heart and agreed to stay behind.  Incase John actually did wake up and wanted to know where everyone went before dawn.  

They make it almost all the way to the crossroads before Madi apologizes.  “I should not have said you were not unduly affected.”  

“Madi,” Thomas sighs.  “I understood what you meant.” 

“It was indelicate.” 

“Perhaps.”  The moon is shining bright above them.  Casting shadows in all directions.  The road is lit even without their lantern.  Frogs and crickets are screaming at each other in an endless battle, waging war against the otherwise quiet of the night.  The earth smells rich tonight.  A sour tang is drifting about in the air, and Madi breathes it in deeply before letting it out.  She can almost taste it.  It sits heavy on her tongue.  Dry and slightly bitter.  

Twigs snap as deer wander about.

They reach the crossroads, and the quaint appearance of the foundation for the inn.  Thomas lifts the lantern some.  Holding it higher so he can get a better look of things.  Stone has been laid on the ground, sinking deep into the earth.  A mud plaster slaps between each slab, holding it secure.  They’ll build the wooden frame above it.  But at least the perimeter is formed.  Wood has been cut and laid out not far away.  If they looked hard enough, Madi wonders if they’ll find John’s hair tossed onto the ground somewhere.  

“The truth is,” Thomas begins.  “I stayed in Bethlem for all of six months.”  The confession is startling in its frankness.  “Long enough for my father and Peter to arrange my transfer to Savannah.  Long enough for them to commit to the farce that Miranda and James were dead, and see to it that I would never attempt to search for them again.” 

She waits, because that cannot be all.  “The truth is,” he continues, “my father ensured that my peers did not see me.  My doctors ensured that I was unharmed.  My time in Bethlem was categorized as one of loneliness and despondency but not pain.  Not suffering.  The truth is, all the fears that James has over my treatment are unfounded, and he will not believe it when I tell him so.” 

Madi isn’t certain she believes it either.  But Thomas doesn’t seem particularly bothered by the traumas that she’d have anticipated.  She has ruled over an island of the dispossessed and tortured.  Thomas is neither.  What he is, is exactly as he said: lonely.  He is dedicated to James and he doesn’t stray from James’ side more than he is required to.  When he does, it is often to be in the company of another.  His bookshop being the one exception.  One that is explained away easily if one takes into consideration his intentions with the books.  To fix what is lost.  To distract himself with work so as not to notice the absence of one he loves. 

Thomas sits on a cool stone and settles the lantern beside him.  He rests his elbows on his knees and bends over them.  Looking at the ground.  “The prison farm was kind to its workers.  The staff were not cruel.  Peter would not have allowed it otherwise.  I thanked my friend for his assistance, and am grateful for his interference.  I corresponded with him regularly.  And his man murdered my wife.” 

Madi sits beside him.  “The trouble with living a lie,” Thomas reveals.  “Is that eventually the truth comes.  The past ten years have not been cruel to me.  But they have been to everyone else.  If you’re looking to understand Bethlem, I cannot tell you.  I do not know.”

There have been few moments in Madi’s life where she has been at a loss as to how to proceed.  A tortured Thomas fits with the narrative she’s known so long.  A contrite Thomas is somewhat different.  “Tell me of the farm?” she asks instead. 

For even if he spent only six months in Bethlem, he spent years at that farm.  Thomas’ eyes close.  The light from the lantern flickers across his features just so.  Casting shadows about his mouth and nose.  Giving him stress lines that don’t actually exist.  An owl hoots its position from a tree nearby.  “The farm you raided?” he asks, and she strains to not feel embarrassment over it.  “However did you manage that in the first place?” 

“There are some pirates still openly on the account.”  Encouraging the elevated prices of Nassau for  Rackham and his collective.  “Some are even still friends.”  She dare not name who.  Thomas neither needs to know, nor does he need to care about it.  It’s not knowledge that he has to take for himself.  “My people remained safe and uninfluenced by the attack,” she tells him.  

“Why  _ did  _ you attack it?  Why not just visit and speak to the man yourself?”  

“I  _ did.”  _ Oglethorpe had extended her every courtesy in the world, but had merely insisted in the end that he couldn’t help her.  The people she was looking for did not exist, they were not there.  She was free to leave.  “John swore to me you were there,” she explains slowly.  “And in my anger at being deceived...and in the face of his insistence that he had told the truth, I felt compelled to prove how wrong he was.” 

The fight had been tremendous.  A breaking point between them that she hadn’t wished to discuss previously.  Perhaps as confessions go, the quiet of the night is a place for both Thomas and her to speak freely.  Unburdening themselves with admitting their faults, and seeing the serenity of acceptance in the future.  Of reaching satisfaction at long last. 

She tells Thomas of her rage.  Of her frustration.  How John had stepped into her heart and soul and he had waged war against the very sense of self that she once believed she had.  Sometimes forgiveness comes at a cost, and she struggled to accept the cost time and time again.  “I love my husband,” she tells Thomas.  “But he  _ did _ betray me.  And while I understand, and have come to realize his intentions, the pain lingers.  Forgiving someone doesn’t make the pain of the wound go away.  It stays behind, biting at the soul, and I wish to be free of it.” 

“It’s so easy to define ourselves by the wars we fought.  By the ones we didn’t.”  Thomas picks at his nails.  Tearing one up from the corner and wrenching the end off from the rest of it.  “I didn’t fight my father in Bethlem.  He came to make a statement, and I received no information on Miranda and James.  I assumed that they were fine, that this was a show of strength.  That once he’d had his say it’d be done with.  All I had to do was wait.” 

Madi leans in closer.  She thinks about touching him, about providing comfort.  But there’s a strange feeling between them when it comes to breaching that space.  Bridging that gap.  They’ve held hands before.  They’ve been in each other’s arms.  But each time is new.  Unique.  An uncertain barrier still lingering where she suspects it shouldn’t.  

She lets him continue.  Unencumbered by her presence.  “Peter explained to me that he had no choice.  That he had to tell my father what was happening.  Abigail was being threatened and our plan was failing.  There was nothing else he could do.  And I understood.  I did.  I told him it was fine.  I believed it wouldn’t matter.  You say things to people when you think you still have the upper hand.  I was in Bethlem, but I wouldn’t be for long.  I  _ knew  _ that.”

“And then he told you Miranda and James were dead.”  It isn’t a question.  For all of Thomas’ logic in the hospital, she imagines it’s the only thing that could have changed things entirely.  

“I could have raged,” Thomas admits softly.  “I could have cried.  I could have committed the self-murer that I’d been accused of.  I could have done any number of things.  But I didn’t.  I listened.  I let it take root.  My father informed me he’d accept me back in the family if I said I knew my place.  But perhaps to his confusion and strange disatisfaction, I’d temporarily run out of things to say.  What good would it have done?  To shout at my father?  To blame him for his actions.  He knew and did not care.  So I said nothing, and soon found my release in a farm thousands of miles away. 

“There is peace, in being removed from a situation from which you know there is no turning back.”  Madi bites her lip.  Thoughts of being Rogers’ captive returning unbidden.  She remembers the first breath of air she had on the main deck.  John at her back.  Flint not far away.  She remembers smiling as the wind touches her skin.  Knowing she was safe, and loved.  “I wanted to save lives,” Thomas admits.  “I wanted to create a better world.  But like Icarus, I fell.  And the world I wanted to create only became awash with more blood.” 

All at once, the unknowable feeling that has existed for so long becomes clear.  The strange mood that has haunted her whenever Thomas has been around gives itself a name.  She sees it now, where she’d struggled before.  She  _ understands.   _ “How do you forgive someone for betraying what you wanted, when you understand they did it for a reason you cannot wholly disagree with, but morally question in its entirety?” she asks. 

Thomas dares a smile.  Tired and sagging.  James Flint had taken Thomas’ dream and perverted it.  He wrought bloodshed and pain from one end of the Caribbean to the other.  He burned villages and massacred families.  He stole and he drank and he created a terror across the seas.  He waged war against England.  All for Thomas. 

And John had done the same for her.  He had taken her dream and torn it apart.  He gave her a half promise.  A someone satisfactory resolution that ended with  _ her  _ people safe, but the final bonds of slavery wrapped firmly around countless other still.  He had betrayed her and their plans.  All so she may live.  So Flint may live.  For them.  For himself. 

It is history in a loop.  Fate re-emerging time and time again.  A tragedy born of light and love and wonder, recycling itself in a petty refrain.  She wonders vaguely which role they all play in the cosmic joke that is their relationship.  “I spent so much of my life believing him to be dead,” Thomas reveals.  “I have no desire for that to become a reality.  You love the person.  You forgive the person.  You accept the person.  And you make peace with their past.  It’s the only thing you can do.”

“You should make peace with your own as well, then.” He frowns.  “Forgive yourself, Thomas.  It was not your fault.  A war fought in your name is not a war fought by your hands.  You cannot control the choices of others.”  She takes his hand. “And I will do the same.” 

_ Penance, _ she thinks,  _ must start from within.  _

That same owl hoots again and Thomas squeezes her palm gently.  “Come on," he says.  He looks at her in the lantern light.  It feels different.  Settled.  More comforting.  She wonders if this is what John feels when Thomas looks at him.  Loved.  Cared for.  Family.  He's eyes are soft and gentle.  Yearning for understanding and peace.  "Let’s go home.”  


	12. The Canon's Yeoman's Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Almost use of the N-Word by a racist, mentions of slavery, arguing amongst main characters.

The foundation of the inn takes almost a full week to finalize, but once it’s in place the rest of the building goes up quick.  Wood is laid out in long stretches.  Glass for the windows is ordered.  The flooring is hammered firmly into place after the support struts go up.  Madi visits with Thomas one cool afternoon.  The heatwave finally abated giving them a chance to breathe without the suffocating humidity clogging their throats and filling their mouths. 

It doesn’t take long to spot James.  He’s instructing some of the workers on the next part of the process.  John, however, is slightly more challenging a target.  He’s inside the building, behind one of the most recent walls that went up.  Hammering away at a seemingly endless row of nails.  Lips pressed tight in a furious snarl.  Short hair springing with each movement of his head. 

“John?” Madi asks carefully.  There’s tension radiating off his body.  For a moment, she thinks it’s pain, but that’s quickly cast aside.  He glances in her direction with a sharp cut of his eyes.  Tension never once bleeding from his form.  

“You shouldn’t be here,” he informs her.  He’s shaking.  Shaking with rage and all the strength required to hold it back.  “Mr. Hands!” he calls, and Israel descends like a god of death.  “Take Madi home.” 

“You do not tell me what to do, John Silver,” Madi snaps at him.  It doesn’t stop Israel from placing a hand on her arm.  Squeezing it just enough to let her know he’s serious, and give her a firm nudge back the way she came.  

Thomas closes in on her other side, forcing Israel to stop--lest he shove her right into Thomas’ chest.  “I do believe I’ve made my feelings clear on you putting your hands on the people I love, haven’t I?” 

“Did you  _ know?”  _ John hisses suddenly, keeping Israel from whatever reply he’d surely invented.  Madi’s head swivels.  Watching as John releases his hammer and nails and twists on one foot.  Crutch thunking to the ground as he hops into a better position. Thomas’ mouth falls open.  Confusion crosses his feature.  He’s never been the target of John’s ire before.  

And looking like this, young and fresh faced and childlike, Madi cannot help but feel as though something’s gone terribly wrong.  Just yesterday John had been smiling and laughing.  Seemingly mending what had been broken.  But perhaps with all things, healing takes time and energy, and there’s always setbacks.  Nothing ever moves so swiftly forward. 

“Did I know what?” Thomas asks John.  He keeps his posture open.  Chest unprotected.  His hands are loose at his sides.  His eyes guileless.  Madi wonders if this is what he looked like in England.   _ Trust me, for how can you not believe I mean for you the best?  _

Something cold and ugly stirs within her.  She looks toward the workers.  The way they glance at them awkwardly.  Keeping their heads down.  Black and white men and the occasional woman tending to their tasks.  James has taken notice of them.  He looks as pleased as John to see them.  He’s making his excuses to the men he’d been directing.  Preparing to approach.  Madi feels her hands start to tingle.  Her chest growing tight.  “They’re slaves,” she deduces.  Israel releases her arm.

John’s anger feels like a demon.  A physical presence sent from hell to wreak havok on the world.  She can  _ feel  _ it against her.  Feel how it leaves her husband and wraps around her.  Making her strong.  Making her violent.  She misses whatever Thomas has to say.  Her eyes are on the the wrist of a man nearest them.  On the scars from bondage are borne so clearly.  

There is no master with a whip in sight, but the intention is clear.  The position is obvious. There is a chorus of voices that she must answer for.  James approaches.  She slaps him.  Everyone stops what they’re doing, and looks.

They stare at her as though she’s the monster.  As though  _ she’s  _ committed some terrible taboo.  Someone starts to spit out a curse.  “You filthy n--” John’s crutch thrusts past Madi’s head with the kind of deadly accuracy of a marksman.  It cuts neatly between her and Thomas’ bodies and catches the interloper right in the throat.  The man goes down with choked breaths as his windpipe collapses under the blunt forced trauma of John’s blow. 

Someone else shouts, and Madi feels a whistle forming behind her teeth.  She turns her head naturally to look back at her men--only to freeze in place at the harsh realization that she is utterly alone.  She has no bodyguard.  No militia.  She has no seasoned warriors who are dedicated to her cause.  She feels cold, suddenly. 

Israel takes her and all but shoves her back, behind him and close to the half built wall that is more wood and nails than any semblance of a structure.  Thomas is shouting now,  _ “Enough!”  _ utterly fearless as he catches John’s crutch on a wholly unnecessary swing to strike another bystander.  The wood slaps against his palm and John very nearly topples off balance as Thomas shoves it back at him.  But he catches himself.  Face an unwelcome shade of red.  

“Enough,” Thomas insists. 

“You have no right telling  _ me  _ what to do,  _ Thomas. _ ” John hisses.  His clutching his crutch so hard.  Brutally hard.  His knuckles are whiter than the men who dared to threaten them.  He wants blood.  Retribution.  It is  _ nothing  _ compared to her anger.  Her rage. 

They’re gathering a crowd.  Uncertain faces looking for leadership.  Divisions being drawn in the sand.  James whirls around and puts his back to them all.  Israel seems ready to wield his hammer with the deadly skill Madi knows he can.  Bash in the head of the man who dared to defy them in this way.  She’s not inclined to let it pass.

She has not felt this angered, nor this betrayed in years.  Not since John revealed the deception around the cache and James Flint.  She feels tears press at her eyes.  _  I left my home for this.  To be a party to slavers who only see me differently because of who I am.  I gave up my life for  _ this.  Thomas has his back to James, though.  They stand back to back, James seemingly defending them against those who would seek retribution for his imagined slight.  Thomas defending James from John, Madi, and Israel. 

Had she the ability to set her own emotions aside, it might have even been touching.  As it stands, she can not.  “Hamish, take your brother and go,” James commands firmly.  There’s a tall boy, perhaps only slightly older than John, crouching by the man John had sent to the ground.  A man still choking for air, gasping for breath.  Turning purple from the effort.  

“That fucking invalid thinks he can put his hands on  _ my  _ family--”

James has no chance in stopping John from cutting Hamish off, “--This fucking invalid hasn’t put his  _ hands  _ on anyone yet.  But if you wish to see a demonstration, I’d be more than happy to oblige.”  It’s a double-entendre that has Israel baring his teeth.  Ready for blood. 

“Enough,” Thomas insists again.  As though it’s the only word he knows how to say.  The only word he can muster to try to face down their hostilities.  It is not nearly  _ enough.   _ Not now, and not ever. 

“Are you threatening me you spanish bastard?”  Perhaps it’s the strangeness of the insult that draws John up short.  His lips part as if he’s going to say something in retaliation, but then he’s caught.  Blinking rapidly as his usually quick brain falters around the words.  As if he cannot quite fathom where it’d come from or what exactly was meant by it.  

Madi lets the implications sink in.  Lets her mind roll over the possibilities and the scandals it naturally entails.  She finds herself reaching out to place a hand on her husband’s wrist.  Light.  Not nearly restraining.  More...acknowledgment.  Letting him know that she was there.  He doesn’t look at her.  He’s still trying to process what the man had uttered, and the hesitation gives James just enough time to stride forward.  Stand in Hamish’ face and growl out with all the force of Captain Flint.  “Take your brother and  _ go,”  _ James repeats tightly.  “Or I  _ will  _ let him put his hands on you, and you  _ will  _ regret it.” 

When the man seems prepared to take up that fight, Thomas scoffs in the most indelicate fashion Madi has ever yet to witness.  “Perhaps you  _ will  _ win,” he offers generously.  “But should you fail, it will be in the face of dozens of witnesses who will remind you daily just how easily you fell to an  _ invalid.”  _ Hamish’s nostril flare, and Thomas can’t seem less bothered.  “Take your brother home Mr.  Roland.” 

Wisely, he finally does as he’s asked.  

The other workers watch in uncertain silence.  Those supporting the brothers’ cause leaving with them.  Only the black workers stay.  Only James’  _ slaves.   _ Madi lets her hand slide down John’s wrist.  Lets her fingers entangle with John’s.  Holding him for support, though she’s not sure which one of them is restraining which.  

“I tried telling you,” James says slowly.  “It is  _ not  _ what you’re thinking of.” 

“I’m thinking that you hired slaves to work on  _ our  _ inn,” John spits out.  From the awkward silence of the bystanders, it’s hard to pretend otherwise.  

“Did you think we would not find out?” Madi asks.  “That I would not care?” 

James’ eyes shut and he runs a hand over his face.  Pressing his fingers into the creases of his eyes as he shakes his head.  “You’re not letting me explain.” 

“Then explain it,” Israel growls.  His hammer shifts in his grip.  More than ready to strike.  Almost desperate for the chance to commit a murder.  Madi cannot tell if she would be too affronted if such a thing happened now.  She cannot tell if it would affect her for long.  She had thought that they could find peace here.  But this...she cannot accept this. 

And if James had been complicit, rather, if James had  _ instigated  _ such a thing, then she could not believe she’d grieve for him.  She has felt the sting of betrayal before.  This time, she will not let it burn her into complacency and acceptance.  This time, she will say  _ no.  _

“The Delaney family is moving north,” Thomas says suddenly.  The name means nothing to her.  To any of them.  It’s a meaningless topic.  But Thomas presses on even as James’ expression seems progressively more pained.  "Their daughter, Lauren, is of marriageable age, and the Roland brothers have been each attempting to woo her.” 

“What the  _ fuck  _ does that have to do with anything?” John snaps.  

_ “Everything,”  _ Thomas snaps back.  “The Delaneys are moving north to follow business prospects, and before they leave they have a need to pay Lauren’s dowry to her future husband.  Her  _ dowry  _ would naturally include her dowry slaves.”  Thomas makes a gesture with his wrist.  Dismissive and out of place and it’s as if he’s trying to show a point of how meaningless this all is when there are human lives surrounding him dependant on the whim of a fickle girl and her horrible husband to be. “I’ve known the Delaneys since we arrived here, and I’ve worked with exhaustively since then.  Lauren visits my shop and is interested in the acquisition of books, we discuss literature from time to time.” 

“Thomas,” James sighs, clearly indicating his need to hurry it up.  It’s a good thing, too.  John’s started to rock where he stands.  Pulling Madi’s hand this way and that as he tries to keep from lunging forward.  Desperate to strike someone or something.  His love for Thomas and James likely the  _ only  _ thing holding him back.  

“She does not wish for her dowry slaves, but needs a dowry in order to marry appropriately.  I used John’s money for the inn to purchase the slaves from her, giving her the funds she needs to continue with her marriage prospects.  They were promptly freed, and James has offered them wages for their service.  Lauren has kindly allowed us use of her family’s slave quarters while appropriate housing is constructed on our property in the interim.”

All at once, the breath leaves Madi’s body.  Her head buzzes dizzily and she lifts her palms to her face.  She breathes in and smells the spice from their kitchen.  The dirt from their land.  There’s a pressure building behind her eyes, but she is blind to it.  She must focus her entire body into standing still and not letting her knees buckle from the realization. 

How close they were.  How close they all had been to making a terrible mistake.  And yet.  And yet--

“You shouldn’t have needed to  _ buy  _ their freedom,” John snaps.  “You--”

“--What would you have had me do, John?” James returns.  “Steal them?  Start a war?  Slaughter the Delaneys where they slept and let them all go free at once?  To be hunted down in the streets?  We did what we could with what we are offered, and need I remind you--you are  _ retired.”  _

It’s a strike that didn’t need to land.  It’s a blow that John needn’t receive.  He flinches badly.  Twists his face toward the ground.  Hand still so tight against the crutch.  Madi wraps her arms around her body and watches as John keeps his head turned away.  He leaves.  Hopping indelicately out of the half built inn.  Israel following him with just one glance in Madi’s direction.  She nods.  She’ll be fine.  

Thomas and James won’t allow anything to happen to her.  

 

***

 

Madi introduces herself to each one of the new workers.  She had known them before, certainly.  But she hadn’t thought of them as possibly being slaves.  Had assumed that they were free.  “What caused the fight?” Madi asks one of the women, a young lady with a slender face and a birthmark on her throat.  Madi learns her name is Kali, and their mothers speak the same tongue.  Madi greets her appropriately, and Kali’s face alights as she does. 

“One of the brothers, Hamish, I think?  He knows us as Miss. Delaney’s slaves, and addressed us as such.  Mr. Silver learned from there.  There was tension.  Mr. Flint told them to move along, but Mr. Silver didn’t.” John’s behavior, while inadvisable considering the circumstances, will not have gone unnoticed by these people.  They will have seen how John prepared to defend them, prepared to fight against his friend and family in their name.  It will have made an impact. 

Tomorrow or the next day, they will likely watch him for future reactions.  Curious as to how he will act.  It is the unpredictable that is dangerous.  The unknown that can cause fright.  “Your home with the Delaneys...it is suitable?” Madi asks.  

“The young Miss is very kind.  Compared to other masters,” Kali adds at the end.  She smiles whimsically.  “She petitioned her father to allow mothers to remain with their children.  Husbands with their wives.  We are whole families because of her.”  A rare thing indeed.  “And Mr. McGraw...he has ensured we will remain as such.” 

“You are under no obligation to continue working for him,” Madi entreats.  Just to be certain that that is clear. 

“He offers us money for labor we are familiar with,” Kali replies.  She seems confused at Madi’s hesitance.  As though she’s not considered the peculiarities of this deal.  “Where else would we go?  Where we would not be pressed back into service?”

And standing in the Georgia heat, Madi tells a tale of home.  Of an island of Maroon slaves, who will gladly take them all, and give them a community if they wish for it.  A life free from daily interactions with men who wield whips, and fickle children who trade lives for coin.  

Thomas and James are aware of her actions.  She knows they are watching over her.  Letting her say her piece.  Not daring to interfere.  She puts them from her mind and continues her task.  She checks the former slaves’ skin.  She requests permission to know their wounds.  She makes certain no one is hurt.  That they are all fit to work, and have not been ill treated in any way.  

But their scars are old.  Their bellies full.  Their spirits uplifted.  They show interest in her island, but they do not yearn for it like she had once thought everyone did.  Instead they agree to consider it as an option.  One that she will gladly arrange for should they need it.  “But we have a home now,” Kali reminds her gently.  “A home and wages!  And a protector as well.”  For no one would dare do battle with James or John.  And now the whole of Savannah will know it.  

Although there is still much to be done, no one is entirely surprised when the work for the day ends sooner rather than later.  James bids them all good evening and Madi watches as he escorts them back to their quarters on the Delaney estate.  Despite knowing that these people are free, she cannot help but feel as though James makes quite the picture as an overseer.  Ensuring his property is penned up as it belongs.  It turns her stomach sick. 

“It was the only way,” Thomas tells Madi quietly.  She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. 

“It was not the only way,” she says.  “It was merely the most convenient.”  She can find her own way back to the house.  She doesn’t need to walk with him. 

Leaving the inn, she makes her way down the long trail back to their house.  Grateful for the solitude as she tries to order her thoughts.  James and Thomas purchased slaves.  They freed them, and paid them wages, but they allowed them to return to their slave quarters where they could easily be abused or impressed back into service once more.  They initiated a transaction and called it a kindness, without so much as a thought towards what would happen after their deal was done. 

Those lives are beholden to them now, and neither James nor Thomas have adequately shown their ability to care for those people.  Someone should have guided them.  Should have spoken to them.  Should have led them from the dark and cherished them.  Should have tended and cared and brought them peace.  Should have shown them a path to flourishing in the sun, rather than hiding in the dark. 

_ I am no longer a Queen,  _ Madi reminds herself fiercely.   _ I was never a Queen to these people.   _ They did not recognize her nor her ability to lead.  They did not understand who she was, nor hear stories of her and her people.  She was merely an outsider, a foolish girl who slapped a white man and was  _ lucky  _ she’d not be struck in response. 

She should be doing so much more. 

There is so much more to her life than this, and she cannot simply sit idly by and let the world keep spinning without action of some kind.  She cannot pretend that she is capable of such stagnation.  

John is sitting in their room when he returns to the house.  His neck is bent down low, head pressed into the palms of his hands.  He’s gripping his scalp tightly with grubby fingers.  Breathing hard.  “You’re going to leave,” John says with absolute clarity.  He doesn’t look at her.  He keeps his face turned away.  “You’re going to leave, and you’re going to find more people to help.” 

“John…” She doesn’t know what to say.  Doesn’t know what more there is to say.  Except, they both know he can’t go with her.  John may very well have a pardon for piracy, but even if no one held a grudge against him for the crimes he committed—he’s a glutton for trouble.  An inescapable wretch more likely to bring them grief than anything else. 

And. 

And…

He won’t be able to keep up.  If she needs to run, he’ll be left behind.  If they need to fight, he’ll be overwrought.  He’ll never be able to manage the journey.  Manage the fight.  “I cannot pretend to be someone I’m not,” she tells him.   He still won’t look at her.  He won’t meet her eyes as she breaks his heart this time. 

“You think I would have let them keep slaves?” John asks.  “You think I would have agreed—agreed to this?” 

“No.”  There’s not a doubt in her mind.  She saw the conflict immediately.  She knows it now.  “But I understand now more than I did then.  I understand what I had been trying to pretend did not exist.  And I cannot sit idly by and allow it to continue.” 

Finally, her husband meets her eyes.  He’s been crying.  He knows what’s going to happen.  “Retired,”  he squeezes out.  “We retired from the account.” 

She rallies her strength.  She holds fast to her convictions.  She steps forward, and kneels before him.  Takes his hands in hers.  “You did,” she confirms.  “You needed to.”  He’s done all of this for her.  He’s done so much  _ for her.   _ She knows what she’s asking of him.  “I want you to stay here.”  He crumbles.  

He’s been slain.  Struck down.  Goliath felled by a single blow.  Achilles by just one shot.  He falls from the heavens and crashes through to the pits of hell.  Despair swallow him whole, and Madi pulls him to her chest.  Feels how one leg presses against her side and the other...is nowhere at all.  Empty where he should be whole.  He’s sacrificed so much for so many causes and none of them ever his. 

“We cannot continue on in this way,” she tells.  She breathes the words into his ear.  She caresses his back and presses her head against the side of his face.  “We cannot continue to demand that life improve, and then blind ourselves to reality.  I am not finished.  I cannot be.”

“I promised your mother I’d look out for you,” John whispers.  

“I will return.”  As often as she can.  She will travel the colonies and see for herself what this world is.  She will determine where she can do the most good.  She will apply her talents where it is necessary.  And then she will return home. 

Her arms tighten around John.  “If I stay, I shall be an alchemist before God, claiming I can turn quicksilver to silver.  Pretending that I have made a paradise from stones.  Ignorant to the imperfections of reality.  I can do more, John.  I must.” 

He has yet to embrace her back.  His arms stay folded before him, even as he shudders against her chest.  She hates this.  Hates the pain that she’s causing.  Hates knowing that no matter what she says to him, he will not believe it.  He’s hearing only what she will not say.   _ I’m leaving because of you.   _

He’s believing only what she doesn’t wish him to believe.   _ I’m never coming back.  _

He is blind and deaf to her reality, just as she has been blind and deaf to it as well.  For all the progress that has been made, they are not nearly close to healing the wounds of the past.  “I love you, John Silver,” she tells him firmly.  Pulling back to cup his childish face between her palms.  Two tears touch her hands. 

When next he speaks, it’s not to wish her goodbye.  He merely says, “Take Israel with you,” and pulls away.  He leans back on his bed.  Rolls carefully so his back is to her.  Dismissal in every part of his posture.  He means to hurt her in the only way that he can. 

He’ll regret it later, she knows this.  And so she leans to him.  Kisses his brow.  “I know you love me,” she tells him.  “Believe me when I tell you I love you as well.”  He doesn’t answer. 

Israel is waiting for her at the door, his bag already packed.  Madi wonders if John told him to prepare.  If he already knew.  He doesn’t ask any questions, though.  Just nods at her when she approaches. 

They leave the house before Thomas and James return home, and Madi sets out on one more adventure. 

She can’t leave things as they are.  She needs to be who she was born to be.  A leader and a savior.  John and his inn can wait.  She’ll be back for them. 


	13. The Man of Law's Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: dubious consent regarding drug use and kissing

John doesn’t come down for dinner.  Thomas goes up to fetch him, and James isn’t sure what is said between them, but whatever it is seems significant.  Thomas descends alone, and keeps his thoughts to himself.  He presses his lips together in a tight line.  Annoyed at being cast off.  Sometimes, James is pleased to note, Thomas still retains some of his lordish snobbery. 

Night falls swiftly, and after that there’s little more to do then sit around and lament about the days happenings.  They know well enough that Madi and Israel are gone, and that in of itself has Thomas glaring moodily out the window.  Twisting the fingers of his right hand around the circumference of his left index finger.  He used to have a ring there, and he’d twist it often.  Old habits apparently find that ring or no—Thomas will fidget if he wishes to. 

“Those people were slaves,” Thomas says suddenly, dropping his hands to his sides and turning to look at James.  “They were  _ slaves,  _ and we freed them.” 

They did.  With money and promises.  Even as James put the contract together, and arranged the details as best he could, he’d marvelled at the fact that once again he was moving behind John’s back.  Choosing for John and Madi what he believed to be the best option.  Really, he should have known better.  

No amount of explaining can help someone understand what they have never truly experienced.  James has told Thomas of the Maroon war.  Madi has explained her position.  John’s choices had burdened him with an intolerable reaction from his wife, causing a schism that nearly tore them apart forever.  He chose Madi’s family and security over the lives of others. 

“But we  _ freed  _ them,” Thomas repeats, as though it will somehow give him the desired result. 

“And the other slaves in the Delaney estate?” James muses.  “The ones on the Rolands’ farm?”  Thomas presses his lips firmly shut.  He rubs his finger harder.  Continues glaring out the window like it will somehow produce Madi and give him a chance to explain.  

“He can’t just refuse to eat,” Thomas declares.  If he attempts to bring food up to John while John’s in this mood, James is somewhat certain they’ll have one less house guest by the time John’s finished.  He’ll have riled himself up into a state that demands he leave and never come back, and James had just started getting used to having them all together. 

He’d deluded himself into believing that this could work.  He honestly, should have known better.  Since when has anything between John and him been simple.  “I’ll talk to him,” James tells Thomas before his lover can think to do anything more.  

Standing from his seat creaks old bones that have no business building an inn.  He hasn’t been out of shape since leaving the sea, not really.  But he’s let his strength fade in different ways, and now he feels the burn of his back and thighs as he stands.  

Letting his fingers trail across Thomas’ arm as he walks by, James rallies himself for the fight ahead.  Where James McGraw is utterly and inherently Thomas’....James Flint is a monster that belongs to John.  Just as John Silver belongs to James Flint.  Their minds, at one point, had become one, and Jame  _ knows  _ what this is.  Knows what’s happening. 

He opens John’s door without asking. 

He doesn’t bring any food.

John’s back is to him.  He’s sitting on his bed, hands folded around the edge.  Head bent down.  He doesn’t react.  As though he knows this has always been coming, and he knows that this discussion is inevitable.  James closes the door, and walks to his friend.  He settles himself down on the floor directly opposite.  Sliding against the wall until his bottom settles on the ground.  He stretches one leg out, props an arm on the opposite.

Vaguely he’s aware they’re mirroring their positions from years earlier.  When John had been grieving for Madi’s assumed death.  In a way, this feels worse.  James had truly thought they’d managed to find a way to make it through this.  He’d thought they’d survive.  That somehow, despite all odds, they’d prove that they could overcome this. 

“She said she’d come back,” John tells him.  He hasn’t looked up yet.  Hasn’t deigned to meet James’ eyes or do anything other than keep his head bent.  His hands digging hard into the sides of the bed.  Posture screaming defeat. 

“Then she will.”  Assurances can feel so empty.  He’s not surprised when John takes this as such.  John can be defined by the things he’s not doing in life. They are numerous and impossible to ignore.  “John…”

“I  _ understand,”  _ John growls out.  “I understand why you did what you did, what your choices and options were.  I  _ understand.”  _  Of course he does.  That was never in question.  He’d been prepared to lie to Madi too, when he’d discovered only the half truth.  James had seen how John’s mind had started spinning.  Trying to come up with excuses and ways to shift the paradigm to his benefit. 

And in the end, he’d lost it all because Madi had come and seen it herself and there’d been no time to create a story.  No time to distract.  John had too recently been knocked off his footing in terms of what his reality had become.  He’d not been able to pretend all was well, nor craft the lie needed to send Madi away unknowingly.  It’s for the best.  She wouldn’t have promised to return if she’d thought John had betrayed her again.  Instead, he’d supported her.  

“I sentenced these people to lifetimes of slavery.  I let these masters hold onto them like property and I…” John’s hands squeeze even harder.  The bed groans beneath his grip.  

“You cannot know that for sure.” 

Finally, John looks at him.  “Can I not?” The growl is back.  The pitch of his voice that is more pirate than retiree.  The dark gurgle of instigation that clashes violently with the pretty picture his face had made after they’d cut his hair and shaved his beard.  He’d almost looked gentle these past few weeks.  But there’s no denying what James has done to this man.  No denying the kind of trauma he’s wrought as he forced John to mold to his image. 

As Flint, James had been a demon.  And to fight at his side, John had joined him.  It’s eerie, seeing John like this.  Now that James has separated himself from his past.  Absolved himself of his actions and tried to refrain from touching the burdensome hell that is Flint’s life.  “You were right, John,” James tells him.  “The English, the Spanish, the colonial militia...someone would have stopped us.  Someone would have ended the rebellion before it could continue to grow in strength.  And even if it didn’t...there’s no guarantee you would have survived.  That I or Madi would have.  And as the light faded from your eyes, there would still be people bound in chains.  There would still be slavery, and you cannot be responsible for the souls of millions.”

And that’s the point. 

John  _ knows  _ this.  He  _ knows  _ this, and yet he shakes his head.  He squeezes his eyes shut.  He tries to cast the knowledge from his mind.  His lungs inhale and exhale rapidly, without giving him the chance to steady his breaths or find any sense of peace in it all.  Once, James cursed him to live a life without meaning.  He hates that it’s come to this. 

“You were right,” James reminds him.  It’s not nearly enough.  But he says it again.  “You were right.” 

John still doesn’t eat that night.  He tells them he’s not hungry, and sleeps with one arm over his head and his body flopped over in an awful approximation of comfort.  James checks in on him before he retires, and spends a few moments just making sure he’s all right.  Physically, John seems fine.  But that’s the word it hinges on.   _ Seems.  _  Nothing with John Silver is ever as it  _ seems.  _

 

***

 

There’s a shift in John’s nature after Madi leaves.  A complacency or idleness that hadn’t existed prior.  He doesn’t argue or tease when James issues commands regarding the inn.  He joins them for dinner, though he stays somberly quiet.  He exists, without function, just as useful as the candelabra on the table or the window stopper in the hot summer heat. 

When he does speak, it’s often in lies or half truths.  He spins stories and tales that people enjoy listening to, but that’s all it is.  James walked in on John and Thomas once.  John telling a story about Solomon Little and Thomas looking ever so intrigued.  James is furious at first.  But he lets it go almost immediately thereafter.  Releasing the feeling into the cosmos and ignoring its very presence.  He decides that he doesn’t have it in him to tell Thomas that John’s a liar.  That the story isn’t real.  That he shouldn’t trust John when he’s like this. 

For whatever reason John has to not tell the truth, now isn’t the time to discuss them.  They’ll sort that out later.  

Madi sends her first letter almost a week after she left them.  It arrives on a nondescript plain white fold of paper.  There is no seal, save a faded strip of string.  The edges of the page are torn and frayed.  The postman doesn’t even look abashed at its appearance.  

The note is handed to Thomas while he was working, and he brought it home to James and John after they’d finished for the day.  He gives it to John with a shrug, admitting he’d read it prior and showing no signs of remorse for the flagrant invasion of privacy.  

John adjusts his weight so he can lean on his good leg, letting his crutch rest against his side as he holds the paper within his hands.  He doesn’t open it.  Instead he meets Thomas’ eye.  “What does it say?” 

“That she and Israel have travelled north and are doing well.  She describes some of the farms and plantations she’s been to, her experiences at them.  Her resolve to her--”

John rips the page in half.  His eyes still not leaving Thomas’.  Then he puts the pieces together, and rips it again.  Then again.  Then again.  Until there’s nothing but tiny squares that he throws unceremoniously in the firepit.   

He walks away.

“I don’t understand,” Thomas says softly.  James can’t explain this to him.  But he’s not shocked nor surprised.  He just shakes his head at Thomas, and tells him to let it pass.  There’s nothing he can do now. 

 

***

 

Letters two, three, and four are met with the same fate.

Thomas wonders if there’s even a point in letting John knows Madi’s writing to him. 

James tells him there is, but it’s not something easily discussed.  Easily explained.  A part of him wants to take John out back and fight him until John’s head clears.  Until he sees sense.  Until he’s beaten down to the point where he no longer cares to pretend.  Until he can get out all his frustration and anger and actually  _ feel _ something other than tragedy. 

He doesn’t do it. 

Frankly, that time is past too.  He doesn’t know if he’s even welcome in John’s head like that anymore.  And if he isn’t, he doesn’t want to pressure him into something else when he’s already struggling so hard as it is. 

_ Frankly,  _ James doesn’t know what to do, and he hates that more than anything else. 

 

***

 

James isn’t entirely sure what woke him up.  The house is quiet.  Still.  Thomas is curled up behind him.  Arm around James’ waist.  He likes to hold onto James while he sleeps, as though he’s making  _ sure  _ James is really there.  In the early days after they reunited, James would sometimes leave the bed to address something.  He’d return to find Thomas staring at the spot James had left, eyes wide, trembling.  The mind fresh from sleep is a fickle thing, more inclined to return to thoughts of dreary dismay than reality.  Now, the weight of Thomas’ arm has become something even James struggles to sleep without.  It’s become a part of them, however inconvenient it may be at times.  

James had checked in on John before they’d turned in.  Had peaked in the room despite John’s insistence to be left alone.  He’d found John lying on the bed.  Deep breath in, deep breath out.  Either real or  _ very  _ convincing faking. 

Everything had been fine, then.  

But now…

Something’s wrong. 

You get a sense of it when you take command.  Of the danger that lurks in still waters, of knives in the dark.  The air shifts and tingles with the pre-storm smell of sharp air and wet earth.  Turning, James kisses Thomas’ brow.  Waking him just enough to let him know, “I’m getting up.”  Thomas blinks blearily at him.  The sun still hasn’t risen, and though it takes Thomas a few moments, he eventually comes to the obvious conclusion that it’s far too early to rise. 

“Are you all right?”  Thomas asks wearily.  He’s starting to blink sleep back, and James nods.  Kisses him.  Presses a hand to his face and guides him back to his pillow.  

“I just want to take a look around.  Check in on John.”  He has no desire to lie to Thomas, no matter how much he’d like to.  If something  _ is  _ wrong, better Thomas be awake enough to react.  If it’s nothing, then they’ll just laugh it off in the morning.  James’ hyperawareness causing them trouble once again.  John will call him an Old Sea Dog, and that’ll be the end of it. 

Kissing Thomas once more, James adjusts the blankets and leaves.  The house is cold, summer heat starting to shift to early autumn chills.  They haven’t needed a fire for warmth in some time, but James is tempted to start one now.  Especially seeing as how he’s not going to be going to sleep again anytime soon.  He’s too energized, the possible threat turning more real by the second.  Even without any evidence to the contrary.   _ Something  _ woke him, and until he determines exactly what it is (and even if he does), he won’t be sleeping again tonight.  

Madi and John’s room is just a few paces away, and James’ feet come to a short stop when he reaches the door.  It’s already cracked open.  More than how he’d left it earlier that night.  Gently, quietly, he eases it open even more.  Peering inside.  John is nowhere to be seen. 

Panic sparks through James immediately, and he quells it just as quickly as it arrives.  He casts his ears outward, desperate to pick up the sound of anything at all.  But John’s crutch isn’t thumping about.   _ He could be outside,  _ James considers.  It’s dark out.  Even if he looked out the window, he wouldn’t be able to tell if John’s using the privy.  But something tells him that’s not the case, and so he continues his search. 

He opens doors to the closets, the office.  Seeing nothing and no sign of John or an intruder.  Twelve more steps and James rounds the bend to the main room.  Relief comes quick.  John’s there.  Standing still.  One hand on the long table they prepare their food at.  He’s bracing himself.  Head hanging down.  James can’t see very well in the dark, but it doesn’t appear as though he’s moving.  “John?” he calls out.  Not eager to receive a crutch swung at his face if he startles the man too much. 

But John isn’t startled.  He reacts slowly.  With great effort.  He turns his head and looks up at James, and while the panic had receded upon seeing John standing there—it returns en force.  In the dim gloom of the night, John’s face is pinched in  _ agony _ .  His eyes are half lidded, his mouth is cracked open.  His breaths are coming too shallow for a man without pain.  He sways a touch and braces himself heavily against the table. 

James crosses the room in seconds.  Catching John by the arm and lifting one hand to his face.  He can hear John breathe, now.  Can hear how he’s straining around each inhale, gasping out each exhale.  “How long have you been here?” James asks, because it doesn’t matter how  _ bad  _ the pain is.  That, James already knows.  The pain is indescribable.  But how long he’s been tarrying, caught in a state of incomprehensible distress…. _ that  _ is important. 

“Don’t know,” John whispers.  He sounds confused.  His voice a pitch higher than it usually is.  James watches as John’s eyes keep fluttering.  They move about behind his lashes and he’s leaning more and more into James’ body for support.  

“All right, all right.” Slipping an arm around John’s back, James takes the rest of John’s collapsing weight against him.  John gasps in his ear, but doesn’t make a sound of protest.  He just lets James manage him.  Lets him support all of him.  The crutch slips from John’s hold and clatters to the ground with a loud  _ thwack.  _

It’ll make Thomas come to see what’s happening.  James knows he left the man with one ear open, and that’ll do it.  Pushing that thought to the side, James just holds John to him.  Cradling the back of John’s head and whispering for him to— “Breathe, it’ll be all right, just breathe.” 

He feels John’s hands awkwardly grasp at his back.  Feels his night shirt being pulled taught.  “What happened?” James asks next.  He can’t think of anything that would have triggered this.  John’s leg always causes him mild pain, but these flare ups are rare.  He manages his pain better now than when he’d been forcing himself to wear that God-forsaken boot.  

“It...was...an...an accident,” John replies.  His voice is lost in the fabric shrouding James’ shoulder, but James hears it nonetheless.

“Take him to our room,” Thomas cuts in from behind them.  John’s face twists so it’s hiding from sight.  His shoulders shake just a fraction more.  He’s embarrassed.  Upset.  He’d come out here so as not to bother anyone, and now the house is awake and it’s all his fault.  “I’ll make some tea.”  Thomas doesn’t approach John.  He doesn’t even look at him.  He lets James ease John back and away.  Out of sight and out of mind. 

John’s mumbling apologies, making faint protests, but he’s leaning harder on James.  Tears are starting to press down his face.  He’s too tired to fight.  He’s too sore to argue.  They make it to the bedroom swiftly, and James sit.  Twisting to help pull John up.  His back protests the movement, and James has half a thought of  _ I’m getting old,  _ before he casts it aside.  

John’s clinging to him.  Desperate and agonized.  He’s shivering badly and every few seconds he lets out a quiet mewl of pain.  No longer trying to hide, John lets the pain take him. He’s a child against James’ breast.  Small and weak and terrified.  He cries, fingers tight around James’s clothes.  Severed leg invisible beneath the folds of his pants. 

“I have opium,” James tells him quietly.  He’d picked it up ages ago, when John had had his first flare up.  He knew John’s opinion on the topic, but things have changed now.  They have changed.  John keens.  His nose burrows into the divot of James’ shoulder.  Thomas arrives with the tea, his lips pressed tight and his face drawn.  “It’ll just be me,” James murmurs.  He runs a hand through John’s hair, petting it and settling it into place.  “Thomas will go about his day, he can see to the inn, run the errands.  It’ll just be me here.  You don’t have to worry about me.”  

A flick of his eyes up toward Thomas is all his partner needs.  He receives a nod of assent, and then Thomas is pulling clothes out for the day and is slipping from the room.  He’ll return with the opium and pipe, but until then, James can work on talking John down.  Even in as much agony as he’s in, John’s a fortress when it comes to using the drug.  Recalcitrant at best, and furiously obstinate at worst.  

Convincing John will take time, and thankfully they have it.  The sun’s not due to rise for a while yet, Thomas doesn’t need to leave for his store for hours.  The inn doesn’t need to be tended to until after dawn.  James can focus on this...slowly peeling back layer after layer of protest until John cannot say no any longer.  “You can be weak for me,” James whisper in John’s ear.  “You don’t have to be strong.  You don’t have to pretend.  It’s over, John.  It’s over.” 

The first argument comes, “I can’t—I can’t—I can’t—” Sweat is pouring from John’s face.  Dripping down and staining James’ shirt.  Saliva falls from John’s mouth.  He’s wet and awful, and James kisses his crown anyway.  

Whispering back, “You can, John.  It’s all right.  You can.  You need to take it.” 

Addiction comes next.  Terror at being one of those opium fiends from the wrecks.  James won’t let him.  He swears an oath to that.  They’re not using it for pleasure or to disappear from the world, they’re using it to blot out the pain that is keeping John from  _ being _ a part of that world.  Small amounts, used appropriately, will give John’s body time to heal.  “You must understand that.” 

Pride is nothing between them.  James has seen John at his worst.  At his best.  John has seen James in similar positions.  “I trust you,” James reminds John.  “Do you trust me?” He does.  He does, but he’s terrified.  Scared of outcomes that his mind has turned into living nightmares.  He’s lost and uncertain and James know that John doesn’t want this.  

James strokes John’s back.  He soothes him at every turn.  He whispers things in John’s ear and wipes the tears from his sweaty cheeks. By the time the sun rises, John’s pain has only increased and his responses have turned to weak stuttering arguments that even  _ he  _ doesn’t seem to believe.  He’s arguing to argue, but he’s given up the fight.  

“It’ll just be me,” James swears.  “No one will see or hear you.  You’ll lay here with me, and I’ll watch over you.  Watch  _ out  _ for you.   _ Trust me,  _ John.  Trust me.”  

James know it nearly kills John to say yes.  Even then, only a nod.  A shaky, tear filled nod that in the early morning light just shows how incredibly young John is.  How mangled and twisted this entire situation has become.  

Thomas brings them the pipe.  He kisses John’s brow, and shuts the door behind him, whispering, “Feel better, son,” as he does so.  John’s hands are trembling too much to light the pipe or bring it to his lips.  His fumbling is too great to manage it properly.  So James does it for him.  He cradles John to his body and he helps him through it.  Holding the pipe to John’s lips and managing his shaky inhales and tragic exhales.  

The sun filters golden light through the windows, filling the room with chipper brightness even as John sinks down into despair.  James has always hated how limp and lax opium makes the body.  And despite imploring John to use it, it’s disconcerting seeing the effects.  He kisses John’s brow, though.  He keeps running his hand through John’s hair.  He tells him it’s going to be all right, as he holds him through the storm. 

 

***

 

John dozes initially.  Slipping away from reality The pipe is set off to the side, and James lays there quietly.  Holding John’s still trembling body and trying to work out exactly what kind of  _ accident  _ could have led to such a reaction.  He’d been quiet over dinner the night before.  Not engaging in conversation about whatever book Thomas had been working on, nor offering too many thoughts as to what they should get at the market the next day.  John’s attention to his construction project had left him tired most nights, however.  Occasional silence wasn’t rare, nor should it be taken to mean something was wrong. 

With John sleeping, it give James the opportunity to rearrange them a touch.  Allowing him the chance to reach down and pull up John’s pant leg.  He doesn’t know what he was expecting.  A bloody wound, perhaps.  And perhaps he’s gratified by seeing bruises.  Though the rough treatment doesn’t explain what exactly transpired.  Only that somehow John’s side is scratched and dark with trauma.  His stump is swollen and hot to the touch.  And while an infection hasn’t sprung up in the middle of the night, it isn’t kind.  There’s nothing to tend to as far as cuts are concerned.  There’s no wound to bind.  There’s only the dark smudge of something, and James is forced to let it be. 

Snatching a book off of the nightstand, James returns to John’s side and places them back into their earlier position.  John curled against him, and James holding him close.  John’s breath is warm against James’ chest.  His head a comforting weight.  They lost so much time in the beginning.  Not knowing what the other would mean to them.  James could have been there more for him, could have tried to reach John when John was starting to fall.  

Instead...well.

There’s no use arguing with the past or dreaming about lost time.  If things hadn’t happened the way that it did, then perhaps they wouldn’t be  _ here  _ now.  James wouldn’t be in a position to hold John like this, in comfort.  John may still well refuse to take the pipe because his concern for appearances overrode every shred of common sense he possesses. 

James stops himself short of musing that Miranda might still be alive.   _ Therein lies the road to ruin.   _ Clearing his throat, James settles in.  Flipping to the start of Book 2 of  _ Meditations  _ and re-reading the well loved words.  

_ When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions. _

John shifts his weight.  Just enough to accidentally put pressure on his leg.  It wakes him up.  Eyes blinking dully.  They’re not really focused on anything.  Just staring at the wall dreamily.  James is tempted to read outloud, but the text is long and there’s no need to waste his voice just yet. 

There’s an enforced stillness to John’s body like this.  A kind of tender respite mimicking languid repose that would be lovely if it had been natural.  John’s  _ natural _ moments of stillness came few and far between.  James often thought he should rest more, but rarely did that opportunity arise.  Pretending this is natural is something that James cannot do, but if nothing else it enables him the chance to indulge in a selfish desire to hold John close.  Knowing he won’t come to James on his own. 

Not for things like this.  

Often, James has wondered if there’s something broken between them.  A shyness that exists where it never used to.  John will let Madi hold him.  He’ll let Thomas.  But when it comes to James, John doesn’t seem nearly as certain.  He steps away from James.  Willing to stand near him, but very rarely willing to embrace.  

But where John would likely have played off his injury for Thomas, and Madi isn’t here to be a factor worth considering at the moment, he’d let James support him in the kitchen.  Let him hold him and bring him back to bed.  Let James talk him into this.  

“Captain….?” John’s looking up at him now.  Somehow managing the strength to blink blearily toward James’ face.  He’s not looking at James McGraw in their home in Savannah, though.  He’s worlds away.  Years away.  

“It’s James,” he corrects gently.  He kisses John’s brow, feeling for fever.  The skin is damp beneath his lips and still uncomfortably warm.  John hums, not really paying attention. 

There doesn’t seem to be any pain reflecting on John’s face, though.  The opium serving to at least stop the anguish from continuing.  Now, John just seems out of touch.  There, but not there.  “Did you get the ship?” Slurred consonants drift into awkward vowels.  James doesn’t answer right away, struggling to place  _ when  _ exactly John thinks they are.  John’s staring at him with such a hopeful expression though, and eventually James just agrees. 

“Yeah, yeah we got the ship.” John’s face morphs.  Lips pulling upwards.  Sunny smiles had gone the way of Madi and Israel.  Disappearing as grief took its place.  Replaced by blank nothingness or false replications.  Now, face drenched in sweat and consciousness wavering, John’s smile is more precious than it had been for some time.  

“You’re Captain again?” Oh.  This is after the mutiny.  When they first found the gold.  

“Yeah, I became Captain again,” James promises.  “No need to make your address.”  John seems terribly pleased by the knowledge.  He lays his head back down on James’s shoulder.  Quietly sighing his contentment.  

He doesn’t move for a few more minutes.  Just dozing in and out while James holds his book loosely.  John’s hair has flattened from his sweat.  The curls becoming unruly and tangled.  It’s better now that it’s shorter.  Less of it to become a mess, but James takes his time.  Starts adjusting the tangles until his fingers can slide through the locks smoothly. 

“Randall’s dead…”  James’ fingers halt their path.  Snagging on a knot.  John doesn’t notice.  Just keeps staring forward.  He’s drooling on James’ shirt, nose pinching with disatisfaction.  “I-I liked Randall….” 

“Me too.”  Looking back on it, James cannot recall if he ever spoke to John about the deaths of the crew that night.  So distracted was everyone from the chaos that followed Charlestown, that James thinks that  _ that  _ particular conversation fell through the cracks.  

John had been unconscious when the bodies were tarped and spilt into the sea.  He’d been bed-bound for nearly a week afterwards, and then the crew had been responsible for John while James and Vane tried to make sense of the mess in Nassau. 

Come to think of it, there’s little reason John  _ wouldn’t  _ have been upset at Randall’s death.  He’d been practically attached to the man since he’d come aboard the Walrus.  Had tied their fates together so they could both stay on the ship and...James had never thought about it.  So used to losing crewmen in times of war, that it hadn’t crossed his mind in the least. John hadn’t been a pirate prior to joining his crew.  He hadn’t grown accustomed to losing men, friends, on a whim. 

An apology is years too late.  An offer of condolence likely meaningless.  He adjusts his hold on John’s body, and he takes care not to jostle John’s leg too much.  John mewls in protest, hands gripping at James’ shirt and sliding along as he’s moved.  The smile is replaced by a confused pout.  John’s eyes sliding off to the left somewhere, his face slack and loose.

“Captain?” John  asks, still not looking at James entirely. 

“James,” he repeats.  He won’t play into the fantasy too much if he can avoid it, not keen on lying to John while he’s confused.  John’s fears stem from things he might say, and James has no interest in pressing for information that John may not want him to know.  In adding to the uncertainty that might make John reveal something he doesn’t wish to reveal. 

“We gotta get to the ship…”

“We have time.”  John doesn’t seem to like that answer.  His frown only deepens.  He lazily manages to meet James’ eyes, and James cups his face there.  Rubs his thumb along John’s cheekbone.  “We have time.  Go back to sleep.” 

The command works.  Surprisingly.  John’s head flops down, chin digging into James’ pectoral.  He lets out a happy sounding gurgle, and farts noisily, entirely unconcerned with anything happening around him.  

The sun keeps rising up, and James returns to his book. 

He keeps reading.  Gently running a hand up and down James’ back.  Soothing strokes that kept John happily content at his side.  Waking very rarely and floating the rest of the while.  He mumbles some, in his sleep.  Names and places and events that James puts from his mind. 

One of John’s hands reaches up at some point to swat unhappily at his hairline, but James catches the wrist.  Runs the pads of his fingers over each knuckle and strokes the irritation on John’s scalp until John stops fidgeting.  He keeps John from scratching at age old wounds on his arms that have scarred over and healed.  He whispers gently when it looks like John’s going to pull back up from his sleep.  Coaxing him into lying still just a bit longer. 

At around noon, Thomas slips inside quietly with a pitcher of water and some food.  Leaving again before John can even tell he was there.  They’d need to do something eventually about going to the privy, but for now, James can hold his bladder and bowels in check. 

He just keeps focusing on John’s breathing. On his brief moments of awareness.  On making sure that nothing touches his leg or gives him cause to have it hurt anymore.  This will take time.  But James will wait.  John’s had people abandon him all his life.  James won't let that happen today. He will wait with John, for as long as it takes. 

 

***

 

James is hovering on the edge of a sleep himself when John moves.  It’s still early afternoon, but James isn’t naive enough to think that one dose will be enough.  They’ll need to do this again, and again until whatever it is that caused the pain in the first place has been given time to settle down. 

John’s eyes are still clouded.  His breath foul.  But he sits up and he blinks owlishly at James.  Between one second and the next he’s kissing James, and all James can think to do is lay there.  Hands against John’s shoulders in a vague attempt to push him back.  “John?” he asks slowly once he’s managed the feat.  

“That night...after Dufresne tried to take that prize and you won the captaincy...I wanted to fuck you,” John breathes against his lips.  A sharp spike of panic goes through James’ chest.  He doesn’t want to hear this.  Not now.  Not like this.  

“John—”

“—I thought about it,” John kisses him again.  Fever hot.  Shivering and twitching.  He needs to take more opium.  Needs to get something to eat and relieve himself.  He needs— “I thought about you pinning me to that fucking desk.  Or even...right on the deck.  Over the rail.” He keeps kissing James, ignorant to their positions.  To the fact that moments ago he’d been too limp and hazy to even lift his head.  His leg had to be hurting again by now, it’s been hours.  

But John’s still there, trying to pull himself up to James’ side, trying to climb into his space.  His mouth procures words from the darkness, his tongue slithers out to slip along James’ lip.  “Stop,” James insists.  “Look at me.” He braces a hand around the back of John’s neck.  The web of his thumb spans John’s jaw, his thumb itself resting against’ John’s cheek.  

_ He’s not conscious.   _ John’s barely focused on him.  His mouth keeps opening and closing, his skin is burning hot.   _ Christ, he’s not conscious.  _  “Look at me,” James repeats, shaking John’s head just a little.  

“I would have done it…” Tears slip from John’s lashes.  One line catching in the cradle of James’ webbing, he stares at it as it fills.  Drop after drop.  His former quartermaster’s face twisting with the agonized terror that came when the pain started and his head swam.  Thoughts half formed and broken.  There’s no logic behind this mess.  There’s nothing to suggest where it’s coming from. 

Save the fact that James is certain John’s feeling his leg now, and it’s driving his clouded mind to conjure ideas that are best left by the wayside.  “It’s all right,” James tells John firmly.  “It’s all right.  You’re going to be all right, and it didn’t happen like that.”

“Would have done it,” John insists, and he’s pressing his face into James’s hand.  Not moving to kiss him again, just shifting...as if he could fall into James’ hand.  Become one with flesh and bone.  “Would have done it so I didn’t have to go back.  Anything was better than going back—”

“—John,” James shakes his head again, but it doesn’t stop him.  It doesn’t make John’s words hesitate or falter like it had before.  The tears keep coming, but now he’s wincing.  His right leg is writhing, as if it could somehow defend the missing left from pain.  

“I’ll do it now, you could do it now, I could—you could.  Please?”  John twitches badly.  His arms give out and he collapses, breath hissing from him as pressure is applied too quickly to his leg.  “It hurt... _ God... _ it hurts...I—” he’s choking on saliva now.  Eyes squeezing shut.  Gritting his teeth, James pushes John back.  Forces him to lay supine as James reaches for the pipe.  He makes sure it’s stocked enough from before, then relights it, returning to John and lowering it to his lips.

“It’s going to be all right,” James tells him firmly.  “It’s going to be all right.” 

“I don’t want it,” John tells him.  “I don’t want this.  I don’t want this.  Stop.  Stop. No—”

“— _ John,”  _ James all but shouts his name.  Leaning over his face so there’s nowhere else for him to look.  “How bad is it?” If John thinks he can make it through, James will let it go.  But from the agonized twist on John’s face they’re not nearly there yet.  It’ll be days before John is likely well enough to forgo any opium at all.  And from how he’s staring at James now, it’s going to hurt every second of every day until they’re done.  

Terror wars with agony.  Uncertainty and fear clashing swords with pain that is so great he’d even consider this.  “Don’t go,” John begs.  “Don’t go.  Please—Captain, I can do this.  I can do this.  You can do what you want, I don’t care, I don’t care, but don’t go.  Don’t go.  I matter I—”

“I know.  You do matter.  You matter to me.  To Thomas, to Madi.  You matter.  You’ve always mattered.  It’s all right.  You’re all right.  You’ll feel better soon, and I won’t go.  I’m staying right here.  It’s going to be all right.” 

John breathes in the opium vapors.  He’s shaking and sick the whole time.  His head is listing badly and he continues murmuring nonsense for almost fifteen more minutes before he falls abruptly silent.  Muscles going lax.  Consciousness snapping out of him like a cut line.  James leans his brow down and lets it touch John’s.  He breathes in and lets it out.  Cursing quietly and trying not to let it show.  

“You’re going to be all right,” he promises.  He’s not going to let anything happen. 

Meanwhile, his lips burn. 

 

***

 

There’s a moment in  _ The Man of Law’s Tale,  _ where a good woman is placed on a ship without a rudder and told to sail home.  Told to leave and sail away without knowing where she’s going or how she’s to get there.  She has no knowledge of sailing, no plan to follow, no path to tread.  She’s merely told that she should go, and if God wills it—she will survive.  And she  _ did  _ survive.  She survived and she preached God’s word, and through her all His miracles were performed.  

James holds onto John as he sobs.  As he lays still and dull.  As he twitches and hisses in agony.  He holds onto him as his mouth drools and his mind rambles.  James doesn’t know he is the ship, the girl, or the broken rudder trying to steer John home.  And as James considers these possibilities, he knows full well that John is the one who’d been set loose in the world, desperately trying to survive. 

So easy it is to liken John to a castaway lost at sea.  A ship buffeted by a storm, landing wherever he may and struggling to make sense of the world that he’s surrounded by.  He strides upon the sand, dragging his body up from the murky depths, and he makes his home on moveable land.  Going where he’s taken.  Following where he’s led.  

He makes sandcastles out of fortresses, he makes kingdoms out of words.  But no one ever asked the girl in the story if she was all right.  They just set her loose to perform her miracles.  Never inquiring as to the toll it took on her body.  Never inquiring if it was too much for one person to handle.  

John whispers words while he sleeps.  He wakes without true awareness and he flinches away from perceived danger.  All that time, James stays with him.  Murmuring that it will be all right.  That he’ll be all right.  That they’ll get through this.  Don’t worry.   _ Don’t worry.  I’m not leaving you behind. _

James steps away only for scant moments at a time to relieve himself, to fetch food or water when Thomas is out tending to the inn and the store.  He returns quickly, hurrying down the narrow halls of their home to make it back before John wakes.  Before John can blink out at the world and tremble in fear.  Terrified he’d been left alone.  

They’re fortunate that John never seems to be aware when James leaves.  He’s always exactly where James left him.  Sprawled out, drugged to stillness, unknowing.  James holds him through it.  Morning to night.  Night to day.  He holds John until finally, John looks at him and whispers.  “No more,” and James agrees. 

He’s had enough. 

They don’t talk about whatever it is that caused John’s leg to flare up as badly as it did.  They don’t discuss the reason.  But pulling John back to the surface takes almost as much time as letting him sink to the depths.  He’s dizzy and off balance more often than not.  He leans too much on James’ shoulder.  He’s more susceptible to sudden bursts of emotion.  Tears come to his eyes unbidden and self loathing follows soon after. 

True to his word, Thomas avoids them both for the duration.  James hears his partner moving about the house.  Can hear him hesitating at the doorway, listening when James reads aloud to John and then slinking off whenever John starts to speak.  He occupies himself with all of James’ responsibilities, and James hates that he needs to do this all alone.  That he’s responsible for so much, when James should be there for him as well.  

He knows that Thomas had wanted to send Madi a letter, let her know what’s happened.  But they have no way of finding her to give her such a correspondence.  She writes to  _ them  _ almost every other day.  But there is no return address.  There is nothing to suggest a destination.  James wishes things were different.  Madi used to be the one to keep John from being immersed in hell, but...everything shifts.  Everything changes. 

“You’re going to be all right,” James swears for the thousandth time.  John looks up at him, fever broken but exhaustion remaining. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

In another time, or another place, James may have said  _ don’t be.   _ But this is them.  This is who they are.  And John won’t accept that.  It will agitate him, infuriate him.  Make him more apt to somehow make it up to him.  So James doesn’t cast the apology to the side.  Instead, he kisses John’s crown.  Paternal.  Fraternal.  Loving.  “You’re forgiven,” he tells his boy.  

Because that’s what John is.   _ His.   _ Theirs, if Thomas is to be considered.  Thomas has made it abundantly clear that John is a part of their family, that he’s someone Thomas will not let go of easily.  And James knows that in his heart, he feels the same.  

John’s face is a tragic picture.  But he whispers his thanks.  He whispers his gratitude.  He tries not to cry, but the drug’s still circulating through his veins.  He’s going to be all right.  Maybe not right now, maybe not tomorrow, but he’ll be all right.  And James will hold him through it.  That’s what he does.  And for each second that they are in this position: James knows, it’s worth it.

Unquestionably, undeniably, worth it. 

Four days after James found John in the kitchen late at night, they join Thomas for dinner in the main room.  It’s clear Thomas hadn’t been expecting them.  He’d already started.  Poking idly at the bowl of soup in front of him.  He’s lost some weight since this whole fiasco began.  All of them have.  Their appetites fading quick under the onslaught of John’s struggles. 

As they advance, Thomas shoves back from the table.  Approaching them with single minded determination.  He takes John’s face between his hands before either of them think to protest.  For a moment, James is certain John will react poorly.  Instead, John merely accepts the touch.  Accepts how Thomas kisses his brow and pulls him in for an embrace.  “How are you feeling?” he asks, taking his place on John’s other side.  

James had forgone the crutch to help John into the room, and now between him and Thomas it’s simplicity itself to maneuver him to a chair.  “Better...foolish,” John adds, keeping his eyes to the side.  If he had the ability, James wouldn’t doubt he’d run.  And perhaps that’s part of it.  John cannot run away anymore.  He cannot escape the problems that face him.  He is forced to actually meet them and deal with them, regardless of how painful.  

Thomas fetches the most recent letters they received from Madi.  He gives them to John with a forced smile.  Hoping it will make him feel better, but know it likely won’t.  John’s fingers trace the edges of the letters.   He doesn’t read them.  Doesn’t open them.  But he doesn’t tear them.  He keeps them in his lap as Thomas fusses.  Getting him soup.  Getting him a blanket to wrap around his shoulders.  It’s progress.

Thomas chatters senselessly while John forces himself to eat.  James sitting at John’s side.  Watching, and supporting even though there’s nothing more that he can do.  Despite Thomas’ efforts, John barely speaks.  Eventually he just mumbles an apology, and asks if he can go back to his room.  Claiming he just wants to sleep.  James shakes his head when Thomas goes to help. 

Stepping forward, he loops an arm around John’s waist and half carries and half drags him to his bedroom.  They pause at the door.  “You can stay with us,” James reminds. 

“I’ve kept you awake and away from him long enough,” John murmurs.  “I’ll be fine.”  He won’t be, but there’s little point in saying that Thomas and James are unlikely to sleep as well.  Settling John on his bed, James bids him goodnight.  Pausing only when John apologizes.  “I’m sorry...for…” he doesn’t finish.  Even without looking at James, it’s clear what emotion the actions of his fevered and drugged mind have built within him.  

“Know no shame,” James whispers in the gloom.  John meets his eyes.  His face a blank mask.  “You have nothing to apologize for.”  John forces a smile, then turns away. 

Thomas is waiting in the kitchen. 

He’s scrubbing down the table.  He’s picking up the food stuffs.  He’s cleaning with the kind of focused tenacity James has learned to attribute to a need for order.  As though cleaning their home will clear the clutter from Thomas’ mind, giving him clarity and sense where there is none.  

He’ll scrub until his fingers bleed.  A kind of self flagellation that is impossible to ignore for too long.  James feels the last vestiges of his strength fading.  He cannot remember life being this complicated before.  Before the war, before London, before...everything.   

“Thomas…” James doesn’t know where to start.  But the call of his name stops his partner from where he’d started to scrub down at an already clean tabletop.  

“Do you know what happened?” Thomas asks quietly.  He’s got his back to James.  Strange.  He usually prefers to look people in the eye, regardless of how difficult the topic is.  When James confirms that he didn’t know what happened, he’s already expecting the bitter sound of his lover’s laugh.  It’s an ugly noise that James doesn’t care for.  One that Thomas uses with breathtaking efficiency whenever he means to cast his hate into the world.  “He was working with Mr. Jessop on the new housing project.  Cardinal Freeman - Kali’s boy?  He was up in the loft and needed something handed to him.  Jessop was distracted and so John climbed the ladder to get it to him.  When he tried coming down, the ladder kicked out.  He fell—landing on his left side.  Everyone thought we’d beat them for it if we knew what happened.” 

And John didn’t convince them otherwise.  Didn’t try to talk them out of it.  Didn’t try to explain himself.  Merely insisted to James he’d hurt himself on accident and offered no other understanding.  James closes his eyes.  He wishes he could find fault in John’s actions.  He can’t.  It’s abundantly obvious that John doesn’t trust them.  That he likely never will.  

Madi may have left, but she’d done so because she couldn’t abide by James and Thomas’ actions.  She couldn’t accept their complacency.  They’d left, and they’d left John behind because he wouldn’t be able to keep up.  Forcing John to handle what Madi already decided she couldn’t.  Forcing him to accept James and Thomas’ actions, where she avoided it entirely.  

It doesn’t mean he trusts them.  It doesn’t mean he has faith in them.  Some of that may have been fixed over recent days...but James doubts it had been a permanent solution. 

“He kissed me,” James confesses, eager to avoid thinking about how the people he’d purchased to set free and give a new life still feared he’d attack them with a whip and impress them back into service.  Thomas’s left brow raises in a perfect gold and grey arch.  

“Did he now?”  He doesn’t sound the least bit surprised.  

“You’ve called him your son before,” James reminds.  “Do tell me if you have concerns with you  _ son  _ kissing me.” 

“If he’s my son, does that make you my wife? Has my boy developed oedipal feelings for you?” It’s no joking matter, but James snorts regardless, and Thomas grins.  He comes around the table, tension bleeding from him as he kisses James’ lips.  

Neither mention Miranda, though the moment Thomas mentioned his wife, the thought blossomed in James’ head.  He’s certain Thomas had thought it as well, but James takes comfort in the knowledge that Miranda would have been terribly amused by the statement.  She’d have had a rejoinder or two herself.  They all would have been in stitches giggling by the end of the night.  “He told me he would let me do whatever I wanted to him, so long as I didn’t leave.”  

It’s less loving than Thomas likely imagined.  The teasing grin snapping from his features on instant.  “That damn boy,” he mutters unhappily.  Fingers twitching to start cleaning once more.  

“You were quite amused prior, my lord,” James teases gently. 

“If he kissed you because he loves you, I would have no qualms nor begrudgments on the topic.  If he’s doing it because he fears we’re going to cast him out and knows no other alternatives then you’ll have to pardon my progressively less amused opinion on the topic,  _ lieutenant.”  _ Rare is it when Thomas snaps at him as such.  But it’s been a horrible week, and at this point James isn’t willing to hold it against him. 

He’s right. 

Worse yet, if there  _ had  _ been any other reason for John’s kiss, it’s obscured now by his presented reasons.  And with Madi gone, there’s little knowing if this is something that John’s doing because he misses the companionship of his wife, out of spite, or truly out of fear that he’ll be abandoned too.  James doesn’t know nearly enough about John’s intimate life with Madi to know if she’d not been willing to engage physically with him or vice versa.  If he somehow blames that potential lack of intimacy in why she chose to leave him behind. 

As always, John finds new ways to complicate matters time and time again.  “How do you feel about it?” Thomas asks James quietly.  

There’s really only one answer James can give: “Becalmed,” and Thomas nods.  As if he were a sailor, and knew exactly what that meant.  As if the deeper meaning is thoroughly understood.  As if he can divine the emotions and sensations from the word.  He can’t.  But he pretends, because it’s what James needs.  He rubs at his eyes, and wonders if it’s possible to fix the rudder of a broken ship when you’re by yourself and lost at sea. 

Thomas embraces him once more, and he adjusts his position.  He’s not by himself, even if he’s still entirely lost with no notion of which way to go or how to get there. 


	14. The General Prologue

“My father was addicted to opium,” John tells James one night after the Inn is finished being built and all that remains is hanging the sign and inviting the neighbors to an opening day celebration.  They’ve ordered the food to be served.  They’ve stocked the shelves with plates.  The tables are set.  The liquor’s being placed behind the bar.  

John’s purse has gotten light from this project.  Almost as light as John himself.  He still hasn’t been eating properly.  His eyes are sunken and his cheeks gaunt.  Thomas has started working himself into a frenzy about it.  Something about John not eating being too close to comfort for whatever undiscussed horror that Thomas has deigned to not share with James.  Again.  

“He used to smoke in our house, lay sprawled on the floor, fucked out of his mind.”  John opens the next crate of deliveries they’d ordered.  Peers into it while James wipes his down the counter from insignificant dust particles.  James doesn’t say anything.  Whatever words he wants to say are not what John wants to hear.  After all, John’s lying again.  

James can tell in the posture.  It’s too loose too open.  He’s going through the motions of course.  His head is down, his body curled forward.  James could almost pretend that this is John at his most honest.  Here by themselves, with no one around to listen in.  With no one around to hear what John has to say.  

They haven’t spoken about anything related to opium in weeks.  James had almost started to think it was a dead issue, but clearly it’s on John’s mind.  It means something to him.  “My mother, she really was Spanish.”  Not hard to believe.  Considering.  James finishes rubbing down the freshly polished counter.  He tosses his rag over one shoulder and kicks out a barstool.  Sitting down, he lets John take his time.  Lets him do what he will with his hands.  His actions.

Letting John lie is the least James can do.  

“My grandfather was a traitor to Spain, and served as an English spy, he moved our family to London before he was caught and executed.  My father knew that, but he always told her it was the English who killed him.  Not the Spanish.  That the English killed him because he was a traitor to _them_ .  And when my father was drugged, he kept telling her over and over how she deserved to die.  How the Spanish were good for nothing _whores._ And when he recovered enough to move, he’d fuck her to apologize or prove a point-- I never really knew which.   He’d take her and he’d make me watch.   _This is what you do to the Spanish, John.”_

Ah. James doesn’t need to wonder anymore.  The picture’s been made clear.  James sighs.  He can still feel John’s lips against his.  The fevered attempt at bargaining.  John’s not looking at him, not because the story is true, but because he’s truly embarrassed by his actions.  He knows no other way to express it.  His life is a story.  Something someone wrote down into the annals of a novel to be read and assessed years later.

He wants to reach out.  Wants to touch John’s arm.  Turn him so they’re facing one another.  John doesn’t want to be touched at the moment.  He wants….absolution.  “How old were you?”  James asks, catering to John’s story.

His friend’s far too clever for such a thing.  John says, “Old enough to remember,” and James wants to laugh.  He doesn’t.  It’s not the right time.  From the phrasing of the story, John’s made it so the only way James can respond is by condemning the man who raped John’s mother.  Who forced him to watch.  Who taught him horrors at a young age when he had no business being exposed to such things.  

But there’s a reason why John’s providing an imperfect comparison.  For every lie there is a truth.  For every half truth there is a glimmer of falsehood.  Even knowing the story’s false, John knows that James will know that, and he still told it.  It’s the reaction John’s looking for.  The response.  So James provides one.  “I would have liked to have met your father,” he tells his friend.  

John stops pretending he’s actually being helpful.  He _finally_ turns toward James.  Left brow arched.  “Oh?”

“To be entirely honest, _Thomas_ would have enjoyed meeting the man.”  There goes the other brow.  Up in the air and confused as can be.  “Truly, I want you to imagine our Thomas meeting the man you’ve described.”

John’s cheeks pink as he mouths _our,_ and then he starts shaking his head in laughter.  “He’d have killed my father, you realize?”

“I realize.  And your father would have deserved it if it had actually happened.”  John doesn’t seem entirely surprised he’d been found out.  More resigned that James is confronting it head on.  “I told Thomas you kissed me,” James reveals without any additional preamble.

 _“When?”_ John’s voice has raised an octave, there’s honest fear in his eyes, panic mounting.  

“Not long after it happened.”  And, because John is still gaping at him like the gates of hell are preparing to open beneath his feet and cast him to the underworld for all eternity, James adds, “Hark, you’ve not yet been disowned.”

It’s remarkable how self-conscious a man who insists he cares not a bit about how others perceive him actually is.  Or perhaps self-conscious isn’t the right term.  James tries to think of another that can adequately describe John.  Unprepared for change? _Unappreciative_ at the very least.  He’s not fond of surprises.  And this one isn’t what he expected.  “Disowned,” John sneers.  Because he goes through stages.  When confronted with something he doesn’t like, he’ll attack it rather than attempt to see reason around it.

Somehow, it’s still astounding to James that a brilliant mind like John’s has the capacity to be so dim witted.  “I’ve seen no papers drawn yet, but if you’re the closest thing he will likely ever have to a son.  Another reason he’d have murdered your true familial father.  I don’t suppose your actual dad is still alive?”

John shakes his head.  Either too startled to tell another lie, or genuinely feeling the need to respond.  James doesn’t doubt it’s the truth.  “I killed him,” John adds on.  And truly James has no idea whether that’s true or not, and so he does the only thing he can do— move along.

“Saves Thomas some trouble at the very least.  He cares for you, you know.”

_“Why?”_

“The same reason I care for you, John.”

The second tactic in John’s arsenal when discussing topics he’d rather not discuss comes out in flourish.  Perfect deadpan, “Our joint desire to not starve?” delivered with an innocent smile.  James isn’t in the mood.  

He juts his chin toward the half empty box that John’s meant to be emptying, and sets the younger man back on track.  He pulls bottles of rum out and sets them on the shelves behind the counter.  “It’s Thomas who recites poetry on a whim, though if you want me to do the same, I’m certain I can remember something.”

Glass clinks against glass as John ducks under the counter.  It takes James a moment to figure out how he’s managing it on one leg, but eventually curiosity gives way and he leans over the lip to see what John’s doing.  He’s kneeling, crutch laid out to the side.  Before, this position ached his stump too much to manage.  Now, his stump being so much shorter, the end doesn’t touch the ground.  In away, it’s bother better and worse.  James doesn’t comment, even as John mutters, “I’d rather you didn’t,” in response.  Another few bottles line the shelves.  “What did he say then, if my _father_ has chosen not to sentence me from...our home.”

“That if you loved me, he’d not fault you in the least, but if you did so under the presumption you’d be sent away for somehow failing us...he’d be upset.  Because he cherishes _you_ , John.  And he and I both worry that you kissed me to try to earn your place.  You needn’t bother.  Your place is already secured.”

The last bottle is stocked with a careful tap on the wood.  John’s thumb scratches idly at the top of the crate he’d pulled them from.  He nods once in understanding, but shows no signs of responding verbally.  If he could stand and run, James imagines he would have.  Once again, John’s a captive audience, though James feels only slightly guilty for taking advantage.  “I’ve told you my past,” James continues quietly.  “Thomas, Miranda, and I...we loved each other.  We were _together._ You know this.  There were times when we all served as different parts of a relationship for one another.  Friend, lover, brother, mother, sister, husband, wife.  Thomas won’t begrudge you for your kiss, any more than he begrudged Miranda for kissing me.  Anymore than she begrudged Thomas for doing so.  Anymore than any of us felt toward the other.  You’re _safe_ here, John.  And you should talk to Thomas.”

“Are you telling me to kiss him as well?” Blue eyes flick in James’ direction.  James almost dares him to.  If only because Thomas would be far better at managing whatever poor decision that lead John to do it.  John’s still under some delusion that Thomas is a passive friend and partner.  If he tries such a thing with Thomas, he’ll be in for a surprise that he might not like.  Because unlike James who pulled away, Thomas won’t.  He’ll dare John to keep going until John either breaks from the surreality of it, or is forced to continue the farce until the end.  And once they’ve finished, Thomas will eviscerate each comment and argument John may have until he’s scrubbed dry.  

The man is a menace.

One James loves him more than life itself.

“I’m _telling_ you not to make choices so foolishly.  You’ve known me for years, you’ve known Thomas long enough to have a true understanding of his person.  If you’re in pain, if you’re upset, you don’t need to bargain for our affection.  You don’t need to tell stories to prove a point.  We’re already as committed to you, as you are to us.  You’ll simply _have_ to accept that.”

For a brief moment in time, neither one says anything.  Crickets chirp noisily outside.  Candle wax drips on their freshly swept floors.  Sweet rum tickles at their nostrils.  But they themselves stay silent and still.  Perfected statues set in tableau, waiting for the clock to tick onwards as a frozen hourglass lays useless on its side.  

Then, John nods again, and says “One day I’ll have told you a story that _is_ true.”  It’s a promise James neither expected nor imagined that he’d ever hear.  Having given up long ago on learning anything more about who John actually is.  He’d dedicated himself to one thing, and one thing only.  Discovering John through their interactions.  Needing no further explanation than the present to dictate his feelings for the man.  “It will be mixed in with all the lies.  All the tales.  But I’ll tell it.  One day.”

Meaning James will never know the truth when it happens.  It will be shrouded by lies.  “It doesn’t matter what it is,” he tells John gently.  “It doesn’t matter how bad or how good it was.  You’re here now, aren’t you?” John nods again.  Lips pressing into a thin line.  “The past doesn’t matter.  The blade’s already struck.  There’s no turning back once it’s found its mark.”

The quiet of the inn is comforting in a way.  Charming in its solitude.  Looking around, after all this time, it feels strange knowing that soon it will be filled with people.  Soon John’s investment will turn profit and they’ll be prepared to move forward with a business that will sustain them well.  James cannot help the thrill of excitement the idea gives him.

They’ve left selecting the name for the inn and the design for the sign in Thomas’ hands.  James saying he didn’t care, John saying he has no talent for naming things.  Considering how easily lies fall of James’ tongue he doubts that with every fiber of his being.  Then again, John has a tendency to blame all his life’s delusions on Solomon Little.  Unless they want the inn called that, it might well be best to let Thomas come up with something.

In return for his assistance, Thomas made John agree to carve whatever design he sketched out.  Something John apparently had a hidden talent for.  Idle hands on a ship usually turn to some form of distraction.  Some more destructive than others.  Music tends to be a favorite, the creation of sea shanties that James honestly could have gone without.  But this is one hobby that James isn’t surprised to learn that John developed.  Nor one that he’s surprised to discover John has some skill in.  It requires no standing, no great bodily movement, and James can easily imagine John in his Captain’s cabin, whittling away at some token or charm while his mind idled elsewhere.

With Madi, perhaps.  Or maybe even _them._

The door opens, and James turns to glance over his shoulder.  Thomas.  “Well, let’s see what you can actually do in a kitchen Mr. Silver,” his partner announces with a forced smile that’s meant to seem at ease but instead seems altogether wrong.  Thomas doesn’t like being disliked.  It hurts him worse than James at times.  And while John _doesn’t_ actually dislike Thomas, James knows that that’s what it seems like at the moment.

“I only poisoned one crew,” John informs Thomas with a smile, though.  Thomas is so shocked by it that he falters, hand still on the door.  Rallying well, Thomas matches John smile for smile.  He shuts the door and hurries to read himself at the bar.  

“What he fails to mention, is that he _poisoned_ that crew _many_ times,” James adds on in a faux whisper.   It’s nice to hear John laugh.  Nice to see him smile.  Things have been so harsh lately, James has half wondered if it’d get better.  But this is starting to feel more normal, and he relishes in the feeling.

As Thomas settles at James’ side, he catches sight of the fold of paper under his partner’s arm. The name and design of the inn.  “There’s time to change it,” Thomas quickly says when he catches James trying to catch a glimpse.  “If you don’t approve.”

There isn’t.  They open tomorrow and there’s only so long they can actually tell people to wait and see.  John needs to be able to hammer out the design and James has to paint it.  And so, without further ado, Thomas reveals the design.  

_Safe Harbor Inn._

A ship floating above the waves.  James feels his breath catch in his throat.  John’s standing still on the other side of the bar.  It’s a pleasant little image.  Not terribly complex but still fetching all the same.  James traces the careful curve of the ‘f’ and how it reaches down as though it can touch the mast of a ship docked at the Savannah shore.  The sails are furled and the town is idle.  Everything at rest after a long journey.

There’s no need to consult with John, James knows his opinions on it.  “It’s perfect.”  Thomas’ smile is sweet.  Relief flickers across his face and he lets out a long breath of air.  Grinning so dimples pinch his cheeks.  He’s a natural showman, but he enjoys honest praise just like anyone else.

“Won’t take long to do,” John mumbles.  He plucks the page from the counter and holds it up to his face.  Squinting at it for a few seconds before hobbling off.  Page still pinched between his fingers.  

It does little to dampen Thomas’ spirits though.  He takes to leaning against the bar and continuing to smile on.  He’s beautiful when he smiles.  When the pain and torment of their past is swept aside and he can simply be at peace.  Enjoying the little moments of their lives that are so blessed and pure that they deserve to be cherished.  

The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and the glory of each morning is in its dependability.  In its unceasing desire to continue moving forward despite the dreary nature of some days and _in_ spite of all the reasons there could be not to shine.  Golden beams of light still pierce through the darkest clouds and the cast new hope and life on a world that bids it constantly _adieu._

Thunderclouds may clash unnecessarily, lightening may spark across the ground, and yet behind it all the sun still exists.  Never cast out of the world in its entirety.  Even when all the people of Earth forget that it is there, even when it is banished from their eyes and they are blinded by the unceasing darkness of a storm that wages for years without pause--the sun lives on.  Burning hot and bright.  Waiting for the moment to emerge victorious.

Thomas is James’ Apollo, and he, as Cyrene, will let himself be kidnapped by his lover’s will.  Let himself wrestle each lion that dares to attack their flock, and hunt any foe who dares interfere with their union.  Ugly beginnings and ugly ends, and yet surrounded eternally by Apollo’s light, James sees no alternative than to be happy.  To accept with gladness in his heart, and to lean in and kiss his lover’s lips.

Thomas kisses back.  Fierce and devoted, full of magic and wonder.  It’s a sensation that James had once thought he’d never feel again.  Would never be blessed enough to feel once more.  He wants to erect palaces in Thomas’ name, he wants to grow gardens to bask in the glow of Thomas’ light--

Perhaps he is a poet after all.

Pulling away, James ducks his head a touch.  Shivering as Thomas trails one hand along his back and down the sloping lines of his arm.  Until the can touch, hand in hand.  Fingers intertwined as their bodies long to be.  Really, they should be going home.

“You spoke with John,” Thomas murmurs.  He always divines the truth.

“I did.”  And there had been no understanding behind the matter.  John had neither confirmed nor denied their suspicions regarding his intentions, and while he had accepted that further action would not cause his expulsion from their lives, he’d not acted on it.  Perhaps that is answer enough.

But no, John doesn’t do anything by half measures.  He prefers letting his mind spin.  He prefers giving himself time to process and plan.  The opium had led to a mistake, as it hadn’t given John time to consider his actions.  Or perhaps, had circumvented a decision to never proceed in such a way. After all, John hadn’t propositioned James on the Walrus.  And even if he’d considered it then, he’d chosen not to proceed.  

As Thomas’ fingers stroke James’ knuckles, James lets his mind imagine what that might have been like.  How he would have responded.  He’d have let it happen, James knows.  Just as he’d let Thomas kiss him.  It would have been so easy to let it it happen.  And it _would_ have changed things.  James doesn’t know if he has it in him to have not allowed it to change things.

Years of desperate longing, hungering for a touch that had been cast in the eyes of the world as undesirable and _wrong..._ he’d have held onto John and been terrified for him in ways that would have torn them apart long ago.  He’d have struggled beyond his capacity to manage such complexities.  Incapable of letting John go.  Desperate to keep him in sight at all times, and resolute to have his fate differ from the fates given to Thomas and Miranda.  And in the end, he knows full well that he would have led John to his death.  And perhaps John would have led him to his own too.

They would have weakened each other.  Tempered by fire, and battered by hammers.  They would have made themselves too brittle to bear, and their steel would never have reformed into a polished sword capable of fighting off their enemies.  The would have broken clear through the last remaining vestiges of their strength and they would have lost everything.

“Such a fatalist,” Thomas sighs.  James glances his direction.  John’s not the only one who has occupied his mind.  Though it feels different when Thomas is there.  Strange, as though Thomas is somehow a passing visitor, appreciative of the thoughts in James’ head, but not requiring them to survive.  Once, James hadn’t thought he could fathom a way both he and John could have existed without each other.

_Damn Billy Bones._

“He’ll be working all night,” Thomas continues.  Squeezing James’ hand tight.  “We should go home.” Already the kiss has changed things.  The thought of John being a part of that facet of James’ life has changed things.  For the innocent suggestion that James would have once readily agreed to leaves him floundering.  He would have stayed for Thomas or Miranda if they needed to work late into the night.  He _should_ stay now as well.  

But.

Things are different.

So they go home, and leave John working.  Opening day is tomorrow.  And this can wait.

 

***

 

Opening night at the inn is something startling, if James is being honest with himself.  Thomas had told the town about their plans to open, and the news quickly spread. By half past five the inn was filled to the brim.  John’s sign had just barely finished being carved with enough time for James to slap some paint on it and hang it.  It rocks back and forth in the wind even as James stands by the door watching the seemingly never ending stream of busybodies.

The majority of their staff is comprised of the new freemen, some moving on after the inn’s completion and following Madi’s instructions to the Maroon Island.  James is half certain John wrote them a letter of introduction for the Queen, not that they needed it.  Though considering how tense things had been in regards to Julius, it might have been a balm to help heal any sore wounds between them.  Julius was many things, but even he couldn’t deny that John and Madi had done well by assisting those who wished for a different life.

The patrons cheered and clapped their hands, someone started playing music and there seemed to be a general feel of levity that floated from one side of the room to the other.  It’s more civilized than Eleanor’s tavern, but it feels similar.  Something warm and friendly and homey that just strikes him as proper.  

Thomas meets James outside, hands folded behind his back.  Even dressed in faded cotton with colors bland and plain, he looks as beautiful as he did in one of London’s grand salons.  Ready to orate some masterful bit of prose that would turn the crowd to him in wonder and awe.  James could lose himself in Thomas’ eyes, and Thomas knows it.  Bewitching him at every moment, bright eyes glimmering as they stand shoulder to shoulder.  Saying, “It’s going well, hm?” in his clear voice.  

James hums his response.  He lets it float between them.  Somewhere inside, John is hobbling table to table checking on people with his natural grace.  He’s a delight to the people of Savannah.  Some new and mysterious gentleman they’ve had the pleasure of knowing from afar and are now pleased with his presence up close.  

The trouble is never John himself.  Rather, it’s his uncanny ability to never be himself for anyone.  So many lies fall off his tongue that James wonders if it ever grows tiresome.  If he ever becomes faded from the thought of needing to keep track of all the things he’s told people.  

Leaning in the doorway like this, James can just make out John telling the story of how he learned to cook.  His mother taking him aside as a child and putting him to work as a progressive minded woman, his brother educating him properly before he left to fight the war--it’s how he lost his leg as well.  They all pat his head and coo at him for his simple minded nature.  

“Do you think he hates it?” James asks quietly.

“On the contrary,” Thomas replies just as soft.  “I think he loves it.”

Someone laughs uproariously, John’s cheerful disposition overshadowed by a cheering audience.  “I don’t mean the cooking or the inn,” James clarifies.  

“Even if I thought you did, I wouldn’t have changed my answer.  He loves that too.”  It’s strange to think that John does.  Strange to think back on the way John worked so tirelessly on building this structure on creating the foundation beneath it and tending to the rooms up above.  How he toiled when his body was brittle, how he struggled when his emotions were in a fray.  He loves this place.  Or he pretends to better than any man alive.  “John loves his stories.  Needs them.  They are no more false to him or to us than reality.”

“In the time I’ve known him, I’ve heard him be an orphan, a baker’s boy, a butcher’s.  I’ve heard him be raised as a priest, and trained in thieving.  He’s served in the army, and was spy.  He’s a pirate.  He could very well be a prince.”

Thomas _does_ laugh at that.  Just enough to pull a hand from behind his back and hide his mouth behind it.  Eyes crinkling with delight.  “Imagine that, our runaway Prince.”  

He _can_ imagine it.  John dressed in beautiful silks, his hair adorned just so.  Heels clicking on marble floors, adoring maids and servants at all sides.  He slipped into the role of being a King by basing his persona on something.  Captain Flint served as a poor tutor for such a thing, but John must have constructed the character from somewhere.  Why not in the corners of his mind.  “Where’s our little Prince from I wonder?”

“Spain,” James replies.  The tale filling out already in his head.  “A bastard of Charles' before his death.”

“His mother?”

“One of his wife’s handmaidens, I’m sure.  The poor Reina Maria couldn’t bear her husband one second longer than she had to and alas, could not understand his heart.”

“Was he well treated in court?” Thomas asks him next, and James nods his head generously.  Telling about lessons and proper tutoring.  Until the King and Queen died and left a vacancy with no clear line of succession.  One that ended with John’s mother rushing him from the palace to safety so he would not be slaughtered in his sleep.  And it, like all the other stories James has heard, sounds just as true as the last.  

Thomas giggles delightfully and they keep their heads bent close and tell each other more fantastic stories that they’ve made up to go along with John’s tale.  Genuinely delighted in how many details they could uncover throughout the evening.

The game takes a life of its own.  One that occupies their minds and attention as they return to the inn and make nice with the locals.  Some thirty or so men and women scatter about the place in various states of joviality, and James cannot help but think about how it all feels so natural.  Working at the farm had been lovely, he won’t deny that, but there had always been something missing.  And this?  Teasing John with Thomas at his side, listening to the endless chatter.  It all feels so normal.  

So blessed.

He catches John on his way back to the kitchen at one point.  Glances him over and confirms for himself that John’s not in any undue pain.  He’s been keeping most his weight on his good leg, and avoiding leaning on the crutch where he can.  But he’s so nimble that it’s hard to tell how he manages it at times.  Still, he grins brightly at James and murmurs in an accent that’s not his:

 

> “At nyght was come into that hostelrye
> 
> Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye,
> 
> Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle
> 
> In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,
> 
> That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde.
> 
> The chambres and the stables weren wyde,
> 
> And wel we weren esed atte beste.
> 
> And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste,
> 
> So hadde I spoken with hem everichon
> 
> That I was of hir felaweshipe anon,
> 
> And made forward erly for to ryse,
> 
> To take oure wey ther as I yow devyse.”

Snorting at the poem, James doesn’t think anything of it as he kisses John’s brow.  Freezing in place when he feels John recoil away.  Blinking rapidly at him.  Looking up at him from under his lashes and glancing toward the door.  No one is there.  It’s closed, and there’s no one to see the affectionate touch.  But someone seeing them isn’t why John pulled away.

He’s pushing past James before he knows what to make of it, and James doesn’t have any idea what’s happening.  

He doesn’t see him again for the rest of the night.  

James has no idea how he managed it.

 

***

 

In the morning, Thomas calls John his Little Prince over breakfast, and John frowns at him.  They tell John their made up history for him, and John nods slowly, frown deepening.  “How’d you know?” he asks quietly.  Thomas laughs at first, but James doesn’t give him the courtesy.  But John’s expression doesn’t falter.  He stays there, staring at Thomas until Thomas has the decency to stop laughing.  To blink.  To consider.  

“You cannot be serious.”

“Did you really think a Bourbon would give up the chance to become King of Spain?  When all that stood in his way was a bastard?”

James needs to work to keep himself from reacting.  From giving it up.  But for as clever as Thomas is, he’s terribly gullible to this version of John’s charm.  He says, “Bastards don’t have claims,” even as his brain starts visibly whirling about.  James can _see_ the sparks flying.   

“Unless they were authorized,” John replies, sotto voce.  He looks out towards the window.  Sulks a bit in his chair.  Thomas is too easy a mark, and _really._

James taps his toes against John’s and winces when John pulls his foot back.  Thomas looks between them, having noticed it with his usual attention.  “You’re not saying that such papers exist,” Thomas drawls anyway.

And then John spins his own story.  How there was a seal, a legacy, a hidden will.  How his mother had been a maid, one who tended to the King’s chambers.  How they’d become friends.  How everyone at court knew.  Thomas gets pulled into the story so very easily and just when James knows Thomas might start actually believing it, John smiles his terrible smile and Thomas groans loudly.  “You’re terrible,” he complains.

“And you’re so easy to fool.”

“I still say you’re a Prince,” Thomas decrees.

John doesn’t even fight it.  Just bows his head.  Stands up from the table and starts making his way to the door for an early start on the Inn.  “The truth is far less interesting.”

“Squire then!” Thomas shouts after him, collecting plates.  “Your hair’s curled enough for it.”  John’s laugh follows him outside, and James strains to hear it until it disappears entirely.  “What _did_ you do to him last night?” Thomas asks once John’s sufficiently out of sight and mind.

“Nothing,” James mutters.  Because it’s true.  He hasn’t done a damn thing.  There’s no reason at all for there to be tension.  Thomas scowls at him in response.  It doesn’t mean anything.

They drag their feet getting the house prepared for the day.  Then, once everything’s been set to rights, James walks Thomas to the shop.  Keeping conversation outwards as much as he’s able.  Look at the birds, the trees, the grass.  The crops are coming in nicely and there will be deliveries at port soon, probably.  

Thomas lets him get away with it, but he spends the whole time humming in a way that James _knows_ means ‘I know what you’re doing and I want you to know I know what you’re doing.’  It’s vaguely infuriating.   

When they get to the shop, James helps get the windows opened and moves a few stacks here or there.  Idling when he didn’t need to, making excuses where he can.  He doesn’t want to go to the Inn yet if it just means he’ll need to spend another unforeseeable amount of time being ignored or lied to by his closest friend.

Thankfully, the arrival of the postman gives him a legitimate excuse before he becomes too obvious, though.  Thomas is handed a small fold of paper and he opens it despite James clearly seeing John’s name on it.  By now, the handwriting is more than a little familiar.  So is Thomas’ reaction to receiving such things.  He’s already reaching for his ink and paper before he’s even opened the letter properly.

John may not appreciate or know it, but he’s lucky Thomas’ memory is far better than John’s.  Madi’s letters may have been torn to shreds seconds after they touched John’s palms, but they’d passed through Thomas’ first.  He has a particular gift for words and never forgets a single one.  He scratched out perfect copies of Madi’s letters and set them aside every time one came in, recreating the torn ones on the off chance John eventually felt compelled to read her words.  Now, he just does it before John gets them.  No sense in taxing himself when he doesn’t have to.

Leaning over Thomas’ shoulder, James reads Madi’s latest tale of adventure.

 

_My Dearest John,_

 

_It has been so long since I have seen you, and yet I have not forgotten you in the least.  I feel you everywhere around me.  Miss you more than I could have thought possible.  I heard you calling out to me across the waves.  I yearn for the chance to see you once again, and feel it must not be long now before such a time should come._

_We are well into our journey, having spoken to so many dear ones.  I have made such allies, and I believe you will find friendship in them as well.  We stayed a time with a quaker community in Pennsylvania, and learned of their work towards the abolition of slavery here in the colonies.  Of all those I have spoken to, these folk seem the most ardent in their desires and their passions._

_Mr. Keith has offered us lodging in one of the buildings he plans to convert into a school.  He wishes for education to be of primary importance here, and was quite interested in the books that my father provided to me as a child.  We had much to discuss.  He even retained a copy of Chaucer’s works.  You should like to meet him I think._

_His wife has seen fit to adorn Mr. Hands for his future oaths, more of which I will speak on later.  She has crafted the most handsome coat of green for him, though it does rather emphasize the brightness of his beard.  He’s not the heart to deny her such niceties, despite his otherwise caustic demeanor.  He keeps his sword and buckler and dagger at the ready all tucked beneath his cloak and doesn’t argue in the slightest about the endless alterations Mrs. Keith sees fit to make from time to time._

_Our dear sailor has struggled I think to come to terms with the calamity of the action I last wrote to you on.  That still has not yet been resolved.  And yet as he fights for his upper hand, he has not the strength to manage these tides.  The lady Constance has made her position to Mr. Hands quite clear that he is to marry her come fall if he’s to make an honest woman out of her, and she’s quite impassioned regarding this point.  (Even for a community as non-violent as these Quakers, they have made their opinions quite clear as well regarding Miss. Constance, and should Mr. Hands tarry much longer I fear he will find himself in the unenviable position of a village filled with unhappy Quakers.  I shudder to think what experience that might provide, both for him as well as our dear guests)._

_I rather think Mr. Hands will be married when you next have the opportunity to see him._

_Miss. Constance has questioned him on his loyalties on numerous occasions and I feel it is only proper to inform you that he’s recited his oath to you with the greatest of confidence.  Do please inform James and Thomas that Mr. Hands and his beau will require lodging upon our arrival at home.  We shall need to return before Miss. Constance becomes too heavy with child to travel, though I’m certain she will follow us even as she is in the throes of birth itself should it come to it._

_And even as Miss. Constance’s needs become more important by the day, I recall that just last night I sat alone in Mr. Keith’s field and wondered on you.  I have longed to hear your voice, and feel the gentle touch of your hand upon my own.  As Mr. Hands fights a tempest of his own making, I realize a tempest of my own has been ignored for so long.  One that stands on my horizon and whispers enticingly a gentle, "Come hither, love, to me," that I feel I must follow forward._

_You fought a tempest to arrive at my island and I wonder now if it not time that I should do the same for you.  Even as I write this letter I am resolved.  Soon.  I will be returning south to you soon.  I pray you will forgive me my tardy nature, and will welcome me as you once did._

 

_My love always,_

_~ Madi_

 

“Good God,” James curses, stepping away from the table.  Thomas snorts.  “Marriage?  A child?”

“It’s no less than he deserves.” That’s said with a level of spite that James never thought Thomas capable of.  

“You do realize that we’re going to be the ones managing the baby?” It’s hard to think of how they can separate their lives from it.  If Israel and this Constance move into the attic with a child, then surely they’ll be integrated into their home with all the haste in the world.  

And Thomas, sweet Thomas, who James once thought could only be considered an innocent, smiles at him so lovingly.  “I shall be ever so pleased to have Mr. Hands’ child learning how to recite the very greatest _shit fucking_ poems I can find.”

He kisses the corner of James’ mouth and then returns his attention to the letter he was transcribing.  To their knowledge, John hadn’t destroyed the last few.  But this was always a precaution.  “You need to talk to John,” Thomas tells him when he finishes.  Handing the letter over with a knowing look.  

“So do you,” James counters.  The weakness of the argument proven when Thomas just waves him off with a flick of his wrist.  Clearly disinterested, and not keen on learning more.  So James goes.

There’s not much else he can do.

 

***

 

To be fair.

_To be fair._

James isn’t entirely sure how giving the letter to John in the back of their kitchen after John had cleaned everything up and prepared for service that day ended with him holding John to his chest and realizing that he doesn’t do this nearly often enough.  

To be fair, James is actually _startled_ at how strange it is that he has the chance to hold John at all.  The man’s been entirely avoiding him to the best of his abilities, and now there they are.  Standing in the kitchen.  Embracing.  John leaning hard on his crutch with one arm tight behind James’ back.  James keeping a good grip on the rest of John’s weight and pressing his head against John’s.  

“What’s going on?” he asks slowly.  John doesn’t say anything.  He never does when it’s important.  He’ll lie and twist the words around, he’ll pretend it doesn’t matter.  He’ll make up a story or lash out violently.  He doesn’t stay still and rest against James’ body.  He doesn’t curl in close.  He doesn’t let vulnerability show, even when he says there’s no pride between them.  Because he doesn’t care if James knows he’s physically in pain.  He didn’t _used_ to care about the emotional pain either.  But things have been different between them.  

Things haven’t been set right yet.

“Are you happy Captain?” John asks when he’s stolen his fill of freely given comfort from James stunned body.  

“I have no idea what’s going on between us,” James tells John quietly.  He dares to tuck hair behind John’s ear.  

“Men like me,” John murmurs, saying it like it will make sense to James.  “We don’t get the happy endings we yearn for.  We can touch it, we can run our fingers across the edge of it, but we can dip no further into the depths of the sea.  It’s impossible.  We are always kept apart.”

And it _doesn’t_ make any sense to James.  But he sees a frightened young man standing on a bluff swearing his past is nothing and he derives no meaning from it.  He sees a terrified child trying desperately to cling to the world with both hands and not let his family go.  He sees a man lying drugged in his arms swearing he’d do whatever it took to keep his family together.  Just please don’t leave him alone.  

John doesn’t want to tell him the truth.  His stories are just stories, but they define him nonetheless.  They give context to his life.  They frame his existence.  The Prince may not be a prince, and the orphan may have parents.  But they are fables filled with morals and messages and James does the only thing he can do.  

He takes John’s face between his hands.  “You will always have a home with me,” he tells John firmly.  He kisses his brow once more.  “I will not leave you behind, and I forgive you.”  Tears press against John’s eyes.  James thinks about John forcing the separation, John sending him away to Thomas.  Ending the war.  The calamities that followed.  “I forgive you.”

 _“Christ,”_ John curses.  

They embrace, and the crutch falls from John’s hand so he can hold James with both arms.  It doesn’t matter.  James won’t let him fall.  “I have you.”  

And he’s not letting go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find middle english and modern english translations of the General prologue here: https://tigerweb.towson.edu/duncan/chaucer/duallang1.htm
> 
> The modern english translation for John's quote is:  
> There came at nightfall to that hostelry  
> Some nine and twenty in a company  
> Of sundry persons who had chanced to fall  
> In fellowship, and pilgrims were they all  
> That toward Canterbury town would ride.  
> The rooms and stables spacious were and wide,  
> And well we there were eased, and of the best.  
> And briefly, when the sun had gone to rest,  
> So had I spoken with them, every one,  
> That I was of their fellowship anon,  
> And made agreement that we'd early rise  
> To take the road, as you I will apprise.


	15. The Miller's Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: attempted sex scene, discussions of non-con, dubious consent, and food issues bordering on eating disorder.

Thomas is late coming to bed that night.  Having stayed up to have his own promised conversation with John.  James sits with a candle burning, reading _La Glatea_ for the second time.  He turns the pages slowly, enjoying how they feel against his fingers.  Pleased beyond measure when he comes to the end of his chapter just as Thomas steps through the door.  He greatly enjoys stopping at set points in his stories.  Not having to struggle to remember where he wants to go from one point to the next.

“How’d it go with John?” James asks as Thomas prepares for bed.  

“Honestly, that boy is more stubborn than anyone I’ve ever met, next to you.” Shoes are kicked to the side, breeches schucked.  Thomas crawls under the blankets and deposits himself on top of James in a heap.

“Next to me?” James asks, huffing and adjusting his position so he can wrap an arm around Thomas’ back.  “You think _I’m_ stubborn?”

“Do _not_ pretend you are not, you terrible man.”

“Terrible?  And here I was thinking so many wonderful thoughts about you.”  The shift is immediate.  Thomas hums thoughtfully under his breath.  He eases himself forward and kisses him.  

They’ve been playing at this all day, and James sighs into the touch.  He leans forward.  He adjusts his legs.  He widens his hips and puts his hands on Thomas’ waist.  “Mine,” he breathes out.  Hands cupping Thomas’ face.  

He rocks forward.  Grinding into his body.  Leaning down to continue his path to James’ lips.  Like a beacon in the dark, desperate for contact.  They grab each other and hold on tight.  Warmth and heat building within them.  Higher and higher, gasping for air.

James hitches one leg up over Thomas’ hip and then shoves forward.  Twisting so that Thomas is on his back.  Spread out beneath him.  Thomas groans.  Arching into the touch.  He gasps as James mouths a path along his neck.  He shivers as James’ hands coast his body.  

Once, James had been Thomas’ dutiful student.  He’d knelt at the altar of Thomas’ possibilities and he opened his mouth for the supplication Thomas could provide.  He listened and learned and shivered under Thomas’ more experienced hand.  Eyes fluttering shut, only to be coaxed into opening them by his romantic love.   _Watch me,_ Thomas instructed always.  So James had watched, and he’d learned.   And he’d never forgotten.

Time has changed them.  Not in the ways that count, James supposes.  But in ways that James had never suspected.  Passivity is lost in the face of endless desperation.  He cannot listen to calls to be patient, to calm.  He needs.  He _needs._ He mouths down Thomas’ body.  He sucks desperately at his chest.  He follows a path to Thomas’ groin and he envelopes his cock with his mouth.

Lathering it with every emotion he can manage.   _Mine,_ the only thought circulating his head.  He sucks and pulls and tastes.  Tastes the faint lingers of sweat and salt.  Revels in the weight on his tongue and the heat off Thomas’ skin.  

Beneath him Thomas writhes.  Gasping and shuddering.  Mouth moving in wordless abandon.  His hands flex in the air.  Not certain whether to touch James’ head or grasp desperately to the sheets.  Once, he might have pulled James off him.  Forced him up and given him a command to be still.  Enforced it with his determination, no matter how hard James whined for relief.

He doesn’t do so now.  He lets James do as he will and James wills much.  He wants to consume every part of Thomas.  Commit each touch to memory.  Burn his soul with the fires of hell as he committed each sin the chapel warms them to avoid and declares to the high heavens it is a sin no more.   _Mine._ He thinks, half desperate and mad.  

“I kissed John,” Thomas gasps out, just as James felt his heart start thundering in his head.  Mouth full of Thomas’ cock, James looks up.  

Thomas isn’t looking at him.  He’s looking at the ceiling, eyes fluttering.  Right hand stretched between them.  Not taking hold of James’ hair when it’s _right there_ to be taken hold of.  Not snatching at the sheets in desperation.  Merely hovering, fingers yearning for something.  Anything.  

James withdraws, and Thomas _finally_ meets his eyes.  His hand _finally_ crosses the space between them.  Heel pressing against his cheek, palm spanning his ear, fingers tangling in his hair.  “Do you love him?” Thomas asks.  James’ pounding heart hasn’t stopped.  He blinks unseeingly at Thomas.

Feels phantom lips against his, arms around his body, tears touching his throat.  He hears waves in the distance, the sound of a spear banging furiously against the bottom of a boat, John’s voice calling out to him.  It’s complicated.  It’s always _been_ complicated.

He sees John in the hours after his leg had been removed.  He sees John sleeping against the bars of a cage on Madi’s island, head bent forward and shoulder pressed against Flint’s.  He sees John sprawled against a hill on the beach, looking at him with such wonder.   _You came for me…_ and such joy.   _I’m not alone._

“Do you?” James asks Thomas instead.  

“Yes.”  Unashamed.  Unconcerned.  Unworried about James’ reaction.  Strange.  James considers his reaction.  Considers how he feels.  He doesn’t feel...anything.  He doesn’t feel a flash of jealousy.  He doesn’t feel anger or frustration.  He doesn’t feel happy or glad.  He feels...much the same as he did only a few moments ago.  As though Thomas had suddenly started reciting a shopping list while James had been busy devouring him whole, and offered him a fruit of a different kind to suckle.  

James didn’t _want_ another fruit at that moment, he wanted to finish making Thomas come on his bed.  

But the moment’s been passed, and James can accept that.  He rocks back on his heels and considers.  Thomas watches him, and he watches Thomas.  And after a few moments of that, he shakes his head and slides from the bed.  Adjusting his shirt and underthings so he isn’t entirely nude when he departs the room.

It takes less than a minute to walk to John’s room.  And for his part, John’s lying on his bed with the blankets pulled up and eyes closed.  He opens them soon enough, and James isn’t being particularly _nice_ about bursting inside.  His patience has reached its limit and if Thomas wants John with them then Thomas is going to get what he wants.  “Come on,” James instructs.

John blinks at him.  “What’s going on?” he asks.  There’s a trace of fear on his face.  A trace of uncertainty.  As though he’s suddenly realized that James would know that Thomas kissed him and is terrified that it’s the final straw that will send him on his heel.  

“You cannot sleep alone,” James tells John bluntly.  John blinks.  

“I cannot sleep alone,” he repeats.  As dull as the goat outside.  It bleats its good opinion almost immediately, as if it _knew_ James thought ill of it.

“No, now get up.  I’ll carry you if I must.”

“You’re not carrying me anywhere,” John retorts sharply.  He pulls the blankets off him and shimmies to the edge of the bed.  Slapping a hand out to find his crutch and squinting at James through the gloom.  “What’s going on?”

“Thomas loves you,” James tells him.  John blinks, mouth falling open.  “ _I_ love you,” James goes on, refusing to pay any attention to the way John shivers at the words.  “So you sleeping here by yourself is an affront to all three of us.”

“Do I get a say in this?” John asks him.  

“Of course you do.”  James waits.  Patiently, he thinks.  He’s being _very_ patient.  He’d wanted to swallow Thomas whole by now and be sleeping in his arms soon after.  But if this is how he’s going to get it, then he’ll take it.  But he’d really rather if John could hurry up and make a decision on the matter.  

Then, quietly, as if it’s the final piece of anything, John murmurs his last concern, “And my wife?”

Madi has left, but she’s promised to return.  And soon.  Promised to come back to them, to John.  Promised that she loves John still, and James knows in his heart that John is hers too.  His impatience subsides almost immediately.  He presses a hand to his face and he forces himself to breathe steadily.  Forces himself to calm.  Then, he turns and sits at John’s side.  Shoulder to shoulder.

What a mess they’ve all made.  

He cannot tell quite yet which one of them is which, but he recalls a story of two men who were after a paramour.  How their lover had already been married, and they’d created a story so the lover’s spouse wouldn’t know.  A story so fantastic and absurd that the tale had been more humorous than anything else.  The spouse being blamed for their stupidity at the end, and the two men not being blamed for their crafty attempts at bedding their treasure.

Groaning, James leans forward over his knees, willing his cock to deflate so he can have an actual conversation with John and not just rush this forward on his whims alone.  “Come lay with us,” James beseeches in the end.  “We’ll not touch you in any way improper, but stay with us.  When Madi returns, you can talk to her about what you want.”

He won’t.  James knows he won’t.  Because John’s not capable of such things.  He’ll put his own desires to the side in the hopes it will make someone else happy.  In the hopes that it will mean he won’t be left alone.  He’ll do anything to make sure he’s not alone again.  Sacrificing his own wants and desires to make it so.

But James holds out his hand anyway, and John takes it slowly.  He lets James help him to his feet.  Help him with his crutch.  Lets James lead him onwards, toward a bed that Thomas has already set up as to hide the evidence of the tryst that will never happen.   He lets James guide him down so he’s sitting beside them.

“Sleep well,” Thomas whispers.  As if that’s all there is to say on the topic.  They lay side by side.  Sprawling and limbs entwined only the a way that three grown men in one bed could manage.  John is quiet, and James wishes he knew what to say to reassure him, but there’s nothing to be done about it now.  

He sighs and closes his eyes, and between one breath and the next, he’s asleep.

 

***

 

James was right, for what it’s worth.  Once Thomas kissed John, he seems incapable of _not_ kissing him.  James watches as Thomas kisses John before he leaves for the day.  Touches John’s shoulder as he passes.  Is friendly in all things.  They don’t progress farther than that, John’s insistence that Madi be consulted first is well respected.  But Thomas isn’t shy about showing his affection, and John almost looks trapped at times when he realizes that Thomas has no inclination to stop.

Taking pity on the man, James spends his time acting as a buffer.  Redirecting Thomas before he has the opportunity to press his intentions, and spending more time at the inn than he likely would have otherwise.  John throws himself into his work, cooking and cleaning as if it’s the only thing on his mind.  The only tasks he can manage without his head spinning wildly out of control.

And even that, James could ignore, if he didn’t also have a firm suspicion that John wasn’t sleeping when he lay beside them.  The bags under John’s eyes were only getting darker, and his weight was once more teetering toward starvation.  “You’re surrounded by food, how can you not eat?” James asks him one day when he’d finished a meal at the inn and noticed for the umteenth time that John had not taken a bite.

Once, a long time ago, John had told him he wants to live a life where he’s no longer hungry.  And yet here he is.  Not eating what he could.  When he could.  Skipping meals despite being surrounded by enough food to go off of.  It’s illogical.

And yet he replies, “It makes me sick,” and James feels a wealth of concern build up within him.

“How?”  The shrug is almost expected.  John doesn’t like sharing personal information or complaints.  He keeps his eyes down and his back to James as much as he can manage, but it will never be good enough.  James reaches out and takes John by the shoulder.  Nudges him until he’s forced to square up before him.  Tilting John’s chin, he meets his friends’ eyes.  “Explain it to me.”

“It...on the island.  Sometimes I’d find something, and I couldn’t eat it.  It would be poisonous.  I’d try and—” he cuts himself off.  For someone so casually verbose with stories not his, he never manages his own tales well.  His hands are clenching tightly around a set of kitchen utensils he’d been using when they first started this conversation.  Wood creaking beneath the strength of his grasp.  “It... _feels_ strange.  In my mouth.  As if, as if my body rejects the concept of it.”

“You’ll die if you don’t eat anything, you realize that.”

“I’m not doing it on purpose.”  Perhaps that’s the most frustrating part about it.  James has seen John while he cooks.  Seen him try to bring food to his mouth only for his mouth to reject it and not let it pass.

Thinking hard, he cannot remember John’s struggles having been as bad when Madi was here.  When he knew she was safe from harm.  When she could sit beside them and eat with them.  He’d been given broths primarily at that point, to soothe his throat.  “Drink some broth at least,” James offers, and John sighs and nods his head.

He’s lying.  Saying yes to appease James and leave the conversation.  “I could take you out to sea to hunt a shark, if you’d prefer.”

“No.” This time, John’s far more forceful.  So much so, that James recoils slightly, mouth falling open in surprise.  John’s grip on his fork and knife have grown stronger.  His knuckles a blinding white stripe across his hands.  “I’m not going back to sea.”

“Why not?”  John turns his back and walks away.  Throwing his utensils to the table and slamming a door shut between them.  “What the fuck was that?” is all James can think to say.

 

***

 

John’s mood worsens over the next few days.  He’s waspish to anyone who talks to him, he growls at those who dare to intervene with what he’s doing.  He forces himself to eat in front of James in a form of spite that ends with him vomiting most of it back up not long after.  He still isn’t sleeping, and even Thomas has started to get more and more concerned.  Stopping his standard fare of flirtations rather abruptly when he goes to kiss John one morning and John all but runs away.

“Talk to him,” Thomas orders firmly.   _“Actually_ talk to him.” As if James hasn’t been _actually_ trying these past few days.  But he nods and makes his promises, and spends half a morning trying to figure out where John had hidden himself.

The answer, strangely, was Israel’s room above the barn.  How John managed to drag himself up the steep stairs to the attic, James isn’t sure he wants to know.  But John’s there, poking at dust balls with his crutch, and looking at it all as if it’s his responsibility to turn it over for Israel’s eventual return.

“We need to talk,” James tells John quietly.  Perhaps it’s for the best they’re here.  It’ll take John far too long to manage the stairs down, and for all intents and purposes: they’re trapped here until James agrees to let it happen.  In a way, James half wonders if that’s the point.  If John knowingly placed himself in a position where he’d be forced to confront this issue.  Or if he just honestly hadn’t thought James would think to come up here to find him.  

“My sister got married when I was twelve.”

“John I’m not here for another story—”

“—our guardian was a butcher who took us in after our parents died.  He used to beat us for not working to his satisfaction.  He’d rape her in the night.  Kept saying he’d marry her one day and make it proper, that he’d put babies in her belly so she could give us more help at the counter.  She dreamed for years of finding a wealthy man who would take us away.”

“John, that’s not what I’m here to—”

“—She did what she always said she was going to do, found a man who adored her and thought she was wonderful, and married her without a thought.  But she left and she never came back, and so Randal took it out on me.”

“Randal?” John’s not even trying to be clever with the names anymore.  He’s making it up as he goes along, and James wishes they could drop the pretense just for a moment.  Just so they could actually _talk._

But the pretense continues, and John doesn’t seem to have noticed his skepticism.  He’s rubbing a hand against a dust covered dresser and scrubbing it clean.  “He’d beat me during the day and force himself on me at night, and so I killed him one night when I’d had enough, and ran away.”

 _Jesus Christ,_ “That’s not going to happen.  You know he’s not trying to hurt you.  John—”

“—I missed him when he was gone.” James hesitates.  Confused.  But John finally turns to him.  Smiling as candidly as he ever did.  “I didn’t miss my sister, but I missed him.  That’s strange isn’t it?” He has no idea what John’s been trying to tell him at all now.  “Everyone I ever knew has fucked me or fucked me over, and then they all left in the end.  They all died or will die, or I’ll be the cause of their dying, and what’s to stop this now, James?”

“You can’t stop death.”

“Then why the fuck should I try to make anything out of life before death happens?”

“Because you don’t need to spend it alone!  Because you’re allowed to be happy, and find happiness in the world.  Because you deserve a chance to eat well, be warm, and feel safe.”

 _“What does it matter?”_ John shouts.  

“What does it matter?”

“What does it _matter_ if there’s a chance for joy, or love, or happiness?  What does it matter if anything good ever happens, because it’s _always_ going to end the same way.  Someone dies, someone leaves—one irreplaceable thing over another.  Must I watch Madi leave over and over again, for the rest of my life?  Must I watch you and Thomas pretend you love and want me until the day you no longer want me in you life?  I’m _tired_ of fighting that fight, James.”

It’s a form of logic that James is sure he understood at one point.  A form of logic that would have been perfectly acceptable so many years ago.  When he fought a war against England because they called him a monster.  When he had Miranda at his side and he couldn’t bear to look at her and see all the damage he’d done to her life.  When she was the living embodiment of his failures.  Of his being a monster.  “And so you’d deny yourself even the smallest glimmer of happiness because it _might_ be taken away?”

John doesn’t even need to say anything in response.  He doesn’t need to frame his argument.  He doesn’t need to press on.  “I should have taken that pardon to Boston,” James tells him.  John whines.  Something awful, low in his throat.  “I should have taken that pardon, and gone to Boston with Miranda.  She would have written to Peter, and we would have learned...eventually we would have learned about Thomas and we would have been together.  The three of us would have been together.  But I didn’t, did I?” He reaches out and snatches John’s arm.  Shakes him bodily.  “I refused.”

Emotion wells in the back of James’ throat.  He feels tears pressing against his eyes.  His war had cost them Miranda, and he’ll never forgive himself for that.  Never forgive himself for letting her be killed.  Letting her be taken away.  Thomas was right there the whole time, and they could never be whole.  All he wanted was for them to be whole.  “She would have loved you too,” James continues.

“Stop,” John orders.  

But the Quartermaster without a crew cannot order a Captain without a ship.  James presses on.  “She would have loved you and Madi.  Would have cherished you both.  Would have taken you in and chastised me for how I pushed you.  How I made you do so many things I knew you couldn’t handle.”

Perhaps it’s all the thoughts of sharks and being becalmed.  But James is struck by an image of two sailors starving on their knees.  Begging for forgiveness.  Of John trying to get someone to confess, and James shooting them both.  “I broke you,” James murmurs.  He leans in.  Presses his brow against John’s and feels him shiver beneath his touch.  “Time and time again I broke you.  I shattered you.  I forced you to make choices and actions that you never wanted to do.  Made you kill friends.  Made you stand idly as those you cared for were slaughtered.”

“Stop,” John tries to pull back, but James holds him still.  Wraps an arm around John’s back.  Cups his face and pulls him as close as their bodies will allow.  

“I broke you over and over, and you knew.  You _knew_ what I was doing.  You told me I was doing it.  You saw me for who I was, and I saw you for who you were.  Tell me now you don’t want this.  Tell me now that you _want_ us to leave.  That you want to be alone.  That you want nothing to do with any of us.”

“You’re going to go—”

“—Tell me, John.” James’ thumb presses hard into John’s face.  Just under his cheekbone.  Gaunt as it is.  “Tell me that you wish for Thomas to leave.  For me to leave.”

A sound pulls up from John’s throat.  A pain filled whine that tears at James’ heart.  He holds his boy even tighter.  Feels how John finally moves to wrap an arm around him as well.  “I had no one before, _no one._  And no one can leave or die or be taken if I have no one.”

“You don’t hate him kissing you, you hate the idea that him loving you is one more pain you’ll need to face in the end.”

“He already replaced a man who would have been my father in my heart.  If he becomes more...I don’t want to lose him.  Lose you.  Lose Madi.  If Madi returns and I’ve abandoned her for him—for you—I...I can’t...I can’t lose any of you.  And even if she is fine with it, someone will come, someone, anyone will come and it will all be ruined.  And I’ll—I can’t...I can’t be on that island again.  I can’t.”

It’s so easy to kiss him.  To lean down and kiss John’s lips.  To feel the desperation in John’s body explode from him.  He clings to John with steadfast anxiety.  The crutch falls to the ground and John’s sobbing against him.  Sobbing as he did when he first reunited with Madi on that beach so long ago.

Sobbing and shaking.  Clinging to James and it’s all become so clear.  Everything is so clear.  John felt the pain and terror of losing Madi once.  He felt the sting of betrayal when James had left him behind and willfully became Eleanor’s prisoner.  He felt the horrors of loss when he sentenced James to Savannah without so much as a word of goodbye.  The lonely abandonment of an island where he’d had only himself for company.  

“Don’t leave me alone,” John begs.  “Please...please don’t go.” The image is made clear.  So vivid and sharp.  Made all the more whole by the quietest of all admissions so far.  “I do...I do love you...I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.”

“I forgive you,” James reminds.  “I forgave you a long time ago.”  He shifts.  Bends his knees to pull them to the floor.  So that he can lean against the wall and let John be held close to his body.  John’s shaking.  Terrified and depressed.  Filled with doubts and fears that will not be easily overcome.  Cannot be easily overcome.

“Tell me what you want,” James asks.

So John tells him a story.  He paints a picture.  He adds in colors and shades as necessary, drawing out a design that James can recognize in its simplicity and earnest desire for passion.

John wants them all together.  Wants Thomas to be his father, brother, lover.  Wants James to be his heart and mind.  Wants Madi to be his life.  He wants Israel there to remind him that he needs to keep his thoughts in the present.  Needs to make a decision.

He wants their inn and the good things that comes from it.  He wants the joy that everyone said was coming, but he’s never known or felt.

He wants all the good and glorious things in the world, and he’s terrified that someday soon, something will come to take it all away.  Something will come and flood their homes like Noah.  That they’ll fight desperately to build their arc, but it will be too late and they’ll be separated in the end.  Torn to the opposite sides of the world, or lost forever by the icy grip of death.

He fears that they will be drowned by the sins of the past, and there is nothing that can promise them the future John longs for.  Their family simply will not sustain it.

“Then let the memories suffice,” James tells him.  “After all...would you not prefer to have the memory of love on your lips, then never knowing if it was what you wanted it to be in the first place?”

“I can’t lose you, James.” John’s hands are tight against his shirt.  “I can’t.”

James wishes he had an answer for that, but as of now, he doesn’t.  He can only hold John closer, and wish that somehow he knew the right words to say.  


	16. The Clerk's Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience, this past month I've been getting ready for a friend to visit, and then getting ready to get married. Now that both of those have been taken care of...
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> Chapter warnings: Discussion of abortions, herbs to cause abortions, prostitution, child death, child abandonment, and the morning of a lost child. 
> 
> In short: Not a happy chapter.

Miranda couldn’t have children of her own. 

“We tried,” Thomas told James one night when they were still in London.  Miranda was sleeping against Thomas’ chest and Thomas was leaned against James.  All of them were wrapped and entwined, one leg mingling with another, one arm draped across a body the mind couldn’t identify.  James just remembers feeling loved.  Feeling safe.  Feeling powerful, holding these two beautiful bodies to him and knowing they were  _ his.   _ They called him ‘mine.’

James had been absently rubbing a hand along Miranda’s side.  Dipping a touch to feel her smooth stomach.  Flat and perfect.  “We tried for years…” Thomas said then.  “But she’s never conceived. I thought...well I thought maybe it was me?” Thomas bit his lip.  James still remembers the uncertainty on his face.  He’d wanted children so badly.  Desperately.  He wanted to hug them to his breast and call them his.  He wanted to give them a world they’d be proud of.  

James tried to imagine what Thomas and Miranda’s children would have been like.  He thinks they would have been perfect.  He’s not sure if he even cares much for children, but theirs?  Theirs would have been perfect.  He simply  _ knows  _ it to be true.  “When she first took her lovers, we’d hoped maybe one would prove more potent...but...there’s been nothing.” 

“There’s no harm in trying,” James whispered sinfully into Thomas’ ear.  Thomas laughed.  Laughed hard enough to awaken their dear girl.  Have her sit up and scowl at them both, hair falling in her face.  

She asked them, “What is so funny?” and neither had the heart to tell her.  But James kissed her firmly, and he caressed her body.  He placed his fingers inside her and he moaned in pleasure as she moaned around him.  They made love that night. 

Then again the next night.  

Then again the night after that. 

Still, it had surprised them when Miranda’s stomach began to swell.  When she felt nauseated and they needed to fetch a doctor for her.  When they heard the words from the physician that she wasn’t  _ ill  _ so to speak, but that she’s with child.  

Surprised them enough that Thomas and Miranda took James to bed that night and fucked him within an inch of his life.  Whispering words of thanks in his ear while Thomas nearly cried from joy.   _ You’ve given us a child,  _ whispered across his skin as they pull pleasures from his body like the sirens they are.

Alfred Hamilton had sneered at the news and grudgingly stated at least Miranda’s finally learned her duty to the household.  The serving staff were given strict instructions to do whatever Miranda needed doing, and treat her with the utmost care.  

Five months into her pregnancy, glowing beautifully the whole while, they’d been on their way to mass when a dog ran out in front of their carriage.  One horse reared and startled the other, both took off down the street, throwing their passengers out of their seats.  The carriage flipped and James lost a few moments of time.  The next thing he remembered was the sight of Thomas crouched over Miranda’s motionless body.  Blood on her hairline, his shaking hands holding her head up to his lap as he called her name brokenly.  

She lost the child, and bled so much through the process, that the doctor admitted she’d likely not have another child again.  She never resumed her flows.  Not long after, James had been sent to the Bahamas, and three months after  _ that _ , their world ended for a second time. 

A lifetime has passed from then to now, and yet as James cannot help but think about the little girl that they buried in a tiny little box in London.  The daughter they would have had and loved that never lived long enough to know how deeply she was wanted.  

Thomas had begged John to help him build something for Israel’s child.  A task that John agreed to readily, only slightly surprised that Thomas had even shown an interest.  James watches over them from the doorway.  Thomas has sketched out a design for the baby, has even drafted ideas for toys.  He’ll likely start in on fabrics soon, a table loom had been ordered at some point and James wouldn’t be surprised if Thomas committed himself to crafting the child every shred of clothing she needed for the rest of her life. 

Thomas doesn’t tell John about the little girl he’d almost had.  But he does talk about how exciting Israel’s baby will be.  If John’s curious about Thomas’ behavior, he doesn’t say so.  Just does his work and settles into a comfortable exchange.  The most comfortable exchange either of them has had since James had first started speaking to John and teasing out the possibilities of what their futures might hold in store. 

Their days are filled with John working tirelessly at the inn, and then returning home to occupy his mind with thoughts of Israel’s babe.  Thomas calls it a ‘she’ more often than not, and no one questions his authority on the matter.  They let him construct libraries with books the child will be interested in reading, and James breathes in Thomas’ scent as he wraps his arms around his body.  Buries his nose in Thomas’ neck, and asks “Just how advanced do you imagine this child to be?” 

His love meets his question with scoffs and incredulity.  Quoting philosophers who insist that an education started early is of the utmost importance to the rendering of a fertile mind.  James cannot hide his amusement.  He lets it flourish, lets all the world see it, because if he tries to hide even one moment of his joy—he knows what lies beneath will surface and he cannot let that out.

Instead, James busies himself like John and Thomas.  He rubs a cloth down on tables that need cleaning.  He discusses the housing project for the freed slaves and what their own personal prospects are.  He goes to town and offers to start trade deals for some of the crops that the newly freed Mason family have started showing interest in producing.  They may be free now, but it will take time for some of the more uncivil minded men to accept their produce.  Even then, it may very well not be at fair market value. 

Marcus Mason had welcomed James’ assistance, if only for the sake of his family, and the good coin that they would need to keep their housing project alive.  He had quietly offered words of concern regarding rent, but James had waved it off.  Promised him that it was a meaningless thing to them, the land had been unoccupied prior to them coming, and they’d expected no profit from it then.  Them living here may or may not mean anything in the long run financially, but if it gave the Masons and their fellows a hearth and home, it would be worth it. 

For a man who has spent far too much of his life cursed at by those he led to their deaths, James isn’t sure what to do with all the blessings he’s been given since coming to Savannah.  So many people have wished him well, that sometimes in the dead of night he wonders if he’s finally turned his fortune for the good. 

Then he hears the shrill call of a baby crying in the distance, and his mind turns elsewhere.  His thoughts turn inwards.  Night starts weighing down on the inn, and he knows he should go home and see to John and Thomas.  But he’s started to tarry.  Started to wait.  Arguing someone should be there to see to the guests’ needs.  Feeling every bit the coward that he never thought he’d be. 

“Between you and Thomas, I imagine there must be a story I’ve missed,” John informs him one evening.  Madi’s most recent letter dates their arrival for the next week.  They’ve all been rushing to see things done, and James cannot help but feel that he’s not prepared at all.  It’s not even his child. 

Perhaps that’s the point. 

The bar is closed now.  The locals returning to walk back to their homes, the guests staying the night already up the stairs and in their beds.  James has been cleaning a patch on the counter for far longer than strictly necessary.  John inches closer.  

His hand touches James’ wrist.  It skitters away.  His eyes glance up, glance to the side.  John’s nervous energy hasn’t faded since he sobbed in James’ arms.  But he’s redirected it.  Hidden it.  They are a family of those who hide their pain.  Running away and pretending so that no one knows where the hurt actually lies.  

James doesn’t like lying to John.  Likes it less than lying to Thomas, if he’s honest with himself.  Thomas and James are well used to the lies they give one another.  Thomas lies about being fine about Bethlem and the farm, James lies about the extent of the damage losing his heart time and again did to him.  

But at sea, there had been few lies between James and John.  James told John every thought that came to mind and watched as John served as barometer for his mood.  Determining whether his actions were just, guiding him when he needed guiding.  Leading him when he needed leading.  Following when James needed to be followed. 

Lying to John feels like lying to himself, and James only does that when he absolutely has to.  “I had a daughter, once,” he tells John.  Watching as John’s face turns carefully blank.   _ He  _ may not like lying to John, but it’s not a feeling that goes both ways.  It’s not something that John can give him in return.  And something about the confession turns John’s face to stone, and James doesn’t know why that is.  

“With Mrs. Barlow?” John asks.  

So he nods.  Tells the truth.  Tells the whole story, start to finish.  James watches John’s face and he tries to understand why John’s gone quiet, and hopes that it’s for a reason that James will one day truly know.  “I’m sorry,” John tells him, in a voice that sounds sincere even if the emotions are strange. 

They take their time dousing the candles.  They say goodnight to their night staffman in charge of seeing to the guests if someone needs them.  Walking home in the dark, they don’t need a lantern.  They know this path so well by now.  James lets his thoughts wander to the daughter he never had.  The memory of bloodied sheets and wailing sobs.  “What was her name?” John asks. 

He answers immediately, “Helen.”  Their lovely princess they would have fought wars for.  Their beautiful angel that the gods bickered over.  Their darling one, their sweet.  John catches the reference immediately, and smiles at him.  Eyes still lost and somber.  

“My mother used to take tansy.”  That draws James up short.  Makes him stop and turn.  “That and pennyroyal tea.”  

“Your mother?” James asks, nearly dreading the question.  

“She was a whore from Madrid working the streets in Bristol.”  Spanish again.  He seems to like that, or it’s too close to true that he can no longer hide it.  “Doesn’t really matter, does it?” Considering this is just another lie, James supposes it doesn’t.  “She got pregnant four?  Five times?  The other women at the brothel would have the herbs on hand, but sometimes we needed to get some from town.  They’d take me with them sometimes.  I always went out when they needed supplies.  I could steal things while they distracted the shop keeps.  

“We’d bring the tansy or the pennyroyal and mi madre—” he says it with an accent that sounds so natural on his tongue, “—would take more than she should, and sometimes she’d convulse.  Sometimes she’d collapse.  She’d have headaches or lose feeling in her arms and legs.  One time nothing seemed to work, and just when she started to show she prodded one of the customers into beating her until she lost the baby.”

James doesn’t remember Miranda ever in such a state.  He doesn’t recall her ever taking the herbs available for such a thing.  Doesn’t recall her suffering headaches or other toils.  Only the abject sorrow as she woke up and learned their child had died.  “My mother never wanted the children.  Any children, really.  She left one night while I was asleep, leaving only the pennyroyal oil and a sprig of tansy with a note saying how much I could take if I wanted to end it myself.  As though she were aborting me too, years after I’d already been born.”

It’s the kind of horrible story that James wishes he knew for sure wasn’t true.  The kind of tale that he desperately wants an answer to.  He wants to ask John.  Wants to pressure him into revealing the truth.   _ Tell me it’s not real.   _ He wants to take John’s hands in his, and he wants—he just wants. 

In the shimmering moonlight, John’s face is carefully neutral.  But there’s a kind of inquisitive uncertainty in his dear blue eyes.  As if he honestly doesn’t know the answer to the question he wants to ask.  It’s a mirroring James’ face.  Mirroring his thoughts.  He reaches out.  Opens his mouth.  John asks first—

“What’s it like to  _ want  _ a child?” 

There’s no answer that James can give him.  There’s no describing the desire.  There’s no answering the question.  John knows it.  He’s looking for something that James can’t give him.  He’s made it clear that he has no intentions of adding to the small collection of people he has given his heart to.  This child, may well be the last addition that John will be willing to accept.  Even then, James can see John shying from the baby.  Shying from its mother.  Wanting nothing to do with any of it.  

Babies die.  Mothers and fathers abandon them and are cruel.  They bring horrors and pains, and there’s nothing to be done about any of it.  “It’s like loving someone so much, and then wanting something of that person that is the union of you and them, so you can love someone else and give them all the joys you were never allowed.  They...they’re irreplaceable once born to you.”  

It’s a word he shouldn’t have used.  One that draws up a memory in both of them.  A memory that John brings to life as he murmurs, “It seems like some kind of hell to choose one irreplaceable thing over another.”

And James is caught.  He’s  _ caught  _ thinking about what he would have chosen.   If it had come to his daughter or Miranda, who would he have chosen if he could have had one or the other.  A horrible thought in his mind tells him that Miranda would be dead in any case but at least Helen could have been here with him.  

An even worse thought imagines Alfred taking Helen when he took Thomas.  Stealing her away and not allowing her out.  How long would he have lost his daughter too?  Would she have been on that ship when he killed Alfred? Would he have fled London with his infant child clutched to his breast, trying to keep her safe while at sea?

And what if she’d lived?  What if they’d all lived.  How would they have lived?  He imagines himself as a Griselda.  A loving mother to a pair of children, who, to test her loyalty, were taken from her by her husband.  Would he have been contented to have stood at the side, and watch Thomas raise his daughter as her father?  Would he have said nothing as Thomas could hold the child to his chest in public, kiss her hair, caress her brow, christen her as his own?  Would he have been idle and silent when Alfred spoke to Helen? 

Thomas, James thinks would have been fine.  They’d have worked something out.  They’d have find some middle ground.  They’d have managed.  And the envy wouldn’t have eaten at James’ soul.  It  _ wouldn’t  _ have, for James loved both Thomas and Miranda too much for that.  They recognized James as Helen’s father immediately, and they never doubted him.  But... _ Alfred... _ The man would have been her grandfather.  What could James have said to dispute anything Alfred wished to do to  _ his  _ girl? 

If he took her, calling it  _ education  _ or  _ proper  _ or  _ family business _ , what could James do to argue?  How could he have ever been granted the right to see his child? 

Perhaps it was for the best that Helen died.  

John’s face is stricken.  “James I—” He doesn’t want to hear it. 

He doesn’t quite  _ flee  _ from John, but he does walk faster than John can manage.  And he doesn’t return to the house and Thomas’ handmade cradle. 

 

***

 

The problem with being emotionally or romantically involved with more than one person, is that there is no hiding emotional outbursts from them. 

Thomas finds him back at the inn.  There’s a bottle of rum in front of him.  A single candle moodily providing light in the otherwise big room.  Thomas doesn’t even bother to walk directly towards him once he gets inside.  Just strides straight to the bar, unlocking one of the cupboards and pulling out a bottle of something for himself.  James doesn’t care to divine what it is.  He just curls over his own mug.  Ignoring how Thomas kicks his foot off the chair he’d propped it up on.  It thuds to the ground and stays there like a discarded tool. 

“Sometimes you don’t listen nearly as well as you think you do,” Thomas informs him.  He pours his drink.  Oh.  Wine.  That’s nice.  He didn’t know John put an order in.  He should have known that.  He reaches for it, but Thomas swats his hand away.  He takes the rum back too.  That’s irritating. 

James bares his teeth at him, and Thomas scowls right back.  He’s unimpressed and unamused.  James can’t remember the last time he and Thomas had a real fight.  Can’t remember the last time they said foul words to one another and regretted it in the morning.  What he does know, is that the few times fighting happened, it was always sickening and awful and neither had the capacity to back down when it came to it in the end.  Miranda had always stepped in.  And after...it hurt too much to say anything. 

There were times when James  _ wanted  _ to fight Thomas.  Times when he wanted nothing more than to take the man and shake him violently.  Beg him to tell him the truth.  Beg him to explain it all to him.  To not hold back.  To not lie.  “Stop fucking lying to me,” he grits out. 

Thomas raises one perfectly plucked brow.  It’s annoying.  Annoying and infuriating and James takes his mug and throws it violently over Thomas’ shoulder.  Thomas doesn’t even flinch.  Just stares at him.  Challenging and cruel.  “Fuck you.” 

“To the greatest extent of my ability, I do endeavor not to  _ lie  _ to you James.”  There are guests upstairs.  Guests who could hear them if they got loud.  If they got more upset.  James isn’t nearly drunk enough to forget that.  So he reaches across the table and snatches Thomas by the shirt.  Drags him around and into the kitchen where he shoves him against the wall. 

And the fucking bastard lets him do it.  Lets him manhandle him with only his brows raised and his expression blank and  _ fuck him.   _ “Tell me about Bethlem,” James challenges.  Perversely  _ enjoying  _ how Thomas’s unphased expression turns pained.  “What a lovely lie you tell.  Nothing happened, you were fine, everything’s fine, you were barely there for a few weeks.”

“Don’t argue with me like this,” Thomas orders.  

The trouble is, James  _ is  _ drunk enough to ignore that order.  He never liked being told what to do as it was.  He tears into Thomas’ shirt.  There are scars on his chest.  On his back.  Along his arms.  Small and minute and nearly invisible.  But they exist.  Fainter than the ones that wrap around Thomas’ wrists, but still there.  “You were never hurt.  You were never mocked.  You were never seen.  Alfred made it so.” 

Thomas’ jaw clenches.   _ “Lieutenant—” _

_ “—Captain.   _ I’ve been a Captain longer than a Lieutenant, and do you know what being a Captain taught me?” He shoves Thomas again.   _ “My lord?”  _ He doesn’t give Thomas time to argue.  Doesn’t give him time to tell him one thing or another.  “It taught me how to  _ know  _ when someone was lying.” 

The body beneath him trembles.  The skin is icy cold beneath his touch.  Thomas’ eyes are blown wide.  There’s something uncomfortably uncertain about the way Thomas is looking at him, and there’s a feral animal within James that wants to draw it out.  Wants to see more.   _ Yes.  Yes.  Be afraid.  Be afraid of me.  Prove them right.  Prove everyone right.  I’m a monster.  I’ve always been a monster.   _

He glances around.  There’s a bowl of water.  Set in preparation for the morning.  James shoves Thomas again, watches as he stumbles against the wall.  It’s a simple thing to spin him around.  To catch his arms.  To push him forward toward the basin.  To watch with a detached kind of awareness as Thomas realizes his intentions.  As he starts to fight back like a rabid animal.  Twisting and caterwauling and  _ begging.   _

“Stop, stop it.  James—James  _ stop! _ ” He’s holding Thomas over the basin.  Holding Thomas so his face just inches from the surface.  

“Tell me they didn’t do this to you,” James growls in Thomas’ ear.  “Tell me they didn’t touch you.” So close.  So close and he can breach the surface.  Thomas is kicking desperately with his feet.  His hands are jerking at the iron grip that James has on his wrists.  Still so lordly thin.  James can hold them both between his thumb and forefinger.  

A part of him blanches at the sight they must make.  But the anger is too strong.  The fury is too great.  He sees Thomas struggling.  Not admitting the truth.  And he pushes down harder.  The first splash nearly sends the basin clattering to the ground, Thomas is writhing so hard.  A part of James sings with pride when Thomas gets one wrist free at last and uses his newfound mobility to pull his arm back and rocket an elbow into James’ nose. 

He stumbles back, pain sliding through him.  He can’t see.  Can’t think about anything.  Blood is going everywhere and he trips against a table leg and hits the ground.  James can’t even consider what’s happening next, because something hard cracks against his shoulder.  Water splashes everywhere.  It takes him far too long to realize it was the basin. 

He looks up. 

One hand still cupping his nose.  Thomas is standing in front of him, breathing hard.  Angered beyond anything James has ever seen.  “You fucking touch me like that again and I’m leaving and you can spend the rest of your life as a drunken lout, have I made myself abundantly clear?” 

James blinks up at him stupidly. 

Then Thomas crouches.  He pulls a cloth off the counter.  Presses it to James’ face.  “You started a war because you thought I was dead,  _ Lieutenant.   _ Perhaps if I refrain from telling you how they  _ froze  _ me in their godforsaken  _ hospital _ it’s because I don’t want to see what you look like when you’re raging against the world.”

The  _ Lieutenant  _ snaps harder than the breaking of the basin.  The pain in his face.  Thomas is looking to hurt and he does so brilliantly when he wants to.  James can’t speak.  Can’t say a word.  The shame is far too much.   _ Oh God what have I done? _

He’d nearly—he’d nearly—

Pain and rum and horror combine in an instant.  He turns and pukes.  Spewing his insides on John’s cleaned floors.  Thomas stands there.  His mouth pressed in a thin line.  He doesn’t hold his hair back. Doesn’t offer assistance.  It’s his own form of punishment.  And God.  James  _ deserves  _ it. 

He deserves every part of this.  Tears press into his eyes and he whispers apologies.  Weakly reaches for Thomas, and isn’t surprised when Thomas ignores him.  Saying instead, “John told me about what you spoke about.  When you  _ left  _ him on that road.” 

Of course he had.  Thomas wouldn’t have thought to look for him otherwise.  He  _ knows  _ that Thomas is looking for an answer.  That he’s looking for a reason why James left John.  But he doesn’t know if he wants to admit to it.  Doesn’t know if he wants to explain what the answer is.  He feels tears sliding down his cheeks and he shakes his head. 

But Thomas waits.  Because he’s patient and he’s cold when he wants to be, and he’s far more capable than James when james is a drunken wretch.  “Do you ever think of her?” James asks.  He doesn’t mean Miranda, though he supposes Thomas could assume that was his intention.  He doesn’t. 

“She was our daughter James, of course I think of her.” 

_ Our.  _ _ Our daughter.  _  As though there’d never been a separation.  As if there’d always been an understanding.  As if somehow their lives could have been whole just the four of them.  “You would have been a wonderful father, James.”

“But not  _ her  _ father.”  It slips out before he can stop it.  He doesn’t mean to hurt Thomas.  But judging from the expression, it’s exactly what he’s done.  “She was always going to be yours.  And I’d have...watched her grow and there’d have been nothing left.”

“Do you want a child?”  Thomas asks.  He’s blunt.  Blunt and firm and showing not a single ounce of regret.  

“No.”  It’s punched out of him.  Snapped through him with such strength and such power that he knows even before his mind can reason it: it’s the truth.  He  _ doesn’t  _ want a child.  He wants  _ their  _ child.  He wants  _ his  _ child.  

Finally, Thomas kneels.  He crouches at James’ feet and pulls him to his chest.  “I know,” Thomas tells him.  Forgiving and kind.  “I know.”


	17. The Second Nun's Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: SERIOUS mentions of dub-con. Vague Stockholm Syndrome as well.

In Bethlem Royal Hospital, Thomas Hamilton had been a broken and abandoned martyr, waiting for someone to come and knowing no one would.  It took five days before his father came to see him, a white cloth pressed against his face and a sharp hawkish look in his eye.  He grimaced openly at the smell of the place, he sneered at the rough marks on Thomas’ wrists, and he seemed alarmingly out of place for a Lord Proprietor.   

Before he’d even arrived, the caretakers had done their best to put Thomas into an appropriate _treatment_ .  They’d removed his clothes at the start.  They’d washed his skin with bristling brushes that scraped him raw, the water chilled beyond anything Thomas had ever felt.  When they’d finished, Thomas thought they half expected him to rail and rage.  But he’d met each of his _caretakers’_ eyes and he said “Thank you,” in as kind a voice as he could manage.  

They shaved his head roughly, for the lice, they dressed him in clothes that scratched and itched, and they sent him to a cell to wait.  A priest came and read him lines and asked him if he wanted to take confession, and Thomas did.  He confessed the sin of pride, and the sin of envy, and the sin of wrath.  The priest waited for him to say more, but Thomas couldn’t bring himself to confess to the sin of sodomy.  It’s not a sin he felt he needed to beg forgiveness for.

The day that Alfred Hamilton came, Thomas had started to feel the first pangs of hunger.  It dug at his stomach in a way he’d never felt before.  He’d spent his life with food on his plate.  With a cook in the kitchen.  With someone ensuring he had enough to eat.  The few times he’d been punished or starved for a night, it had been an brief and understood consequence.  Here, it felt like an eternal thread of damnation.

The physicians informed him that too much food can turn a man’s mind sour.  That it distracts him from thoughts of goodness and purity.  They take for granted what they have, and they cannot understand their own good fortune.  Thomas bowed his head in supplication and thanked them for the bread they provided when they deemed it necessary to do such a thing.  

 _Be polite,_ he had ordered himself.   _Be polite, and prove that you’re not mad._

Ironically, the physicians were right.  

When the hunger hit, he rested a hand to his stomach and marveled at the feeling.  He watched the sun dip low and he felt the pain grow.  He felt the crawling discomfort of acid rising up his throat.  He swallowed it back.  He felt his innards cannibalizing themselves.  And he admitted, then, that the physicians were right.  He took for granted what he had.

His father stepped inside his room just as the thought took hold.  “You’ve disappointed me,” he was told.  Hunger makes Thomas tired.  But not sleepy.  It had been a strange feeling, wanting to sleep, but not being able too.  He’d been too hungry to sleep, but he’d also been too tired to do more than turn his head.  Blink dully at the man.  His vision had taken a long while to focus and settle.  He would have congratulated himself on his success, but there’d been little point.  

Thomas had shivered and looked at his father.  Waiting.  His head hurt.  His hands hurt.  He was keenly aware that everything hurt.  “Why am I here?” Thomas asked instead.  

His father had scoffed.  Scowled.  Called him a foul name that Thomas put from his mind.  It mixed with all the other foul things that his father had called him.  It didn’t matter.  “I mean, why does the _world_ believe I’m here?” That drew his father up short.  Made him look at Thomas with an almost murderous expression.

“Your wife had an affair with your... _friend._ ”

“James,” Thomas said the name.  Relished in how his father’s complexion turned purple.  How the man’s fingers squeezed brutally on the white cloth he still held by his face.  A poor attempt to block the smell that would never lift.  “Miranda had an affair with James,” Thomas prompted.

“You could not accept the betrayal.”

“And when will I?” he asked.

“Never,” Alfred informed him.  “You will never see outside these walls.  Never again.  I will not allow it.  Your inheritance—”

“Where are Miranda and James?” Thomas asked.  The rest doesn’t matter.  It had never mattered.  Not really.  

“To you,” Alfred said, “They’re dead.”

Then he left, and Thomas watched him go, and his head hurt too much to argue.  

 

***

 

Alfred didn’t have much of a hand in Thomas’ time in Bethlem after that day.  But Peter did.  Peter came as soon as Alfred left.  He gave Thomas a blanket.  He brought grapes that he pressed against Thomas’ lips, and he rubbed at Thomas’ sore wrists.  He whispered apologies to Thomas and confessed his own sins, far more dark and cruel than Thomas’, and Thomas wondered if it was possible to torture a man as much as Peter tortured himself.

“Your father threatened to reveal I was a sodomite,” Peter explained to Thomas.  He rubbed and rubbed and rubbed at Thomas’ wrists.  So much so that he left red marks of his own.  Thomas blinked dully at the walls of his cell.  Remembering teenage kisses exchanged in the dark arches of Eton.  Remembering what it had been like to realize he liked men more than women, and how Peter had been his friend from the start.

His learning partner.  

His companion.

“It would have ruined my family, my wife—my _daughter.”_  Thomas thought, then, of his own wife.  Of their daughter who never drew breath.  Of James and how he’d needed to flee.  “I’m sorry,” Peter begged Thomas for forgiveness.

It would have been easy, Thomas knew, to tell the world the truth.  To tell them about Peter and have Peter warm the cell beside him.  It would have been so easy.  But Peter had knowledge that Thomas needed.  He had access to amenities that Thomas no longer had.  The physicians were right.  Take away everything, and what really matters becomes clear.  “Keep them safe,” Thomas had replied, kissing Peter’s hands.  “And you have my forgiveness.”

Because he understood.  More than anything else, he understood _this_.  He understood when Peter told him of the Governorship of the Carolina Colony.  He understood when Peter sobbed against his shoulder.  When Peter stole a kiss Thomas hadn’t intended to give.

He understood all of it.  

Dully, it became the only thing in his life he _could_ understand.  The baths were cold, the lessons brutal, the mice came in the night to nip at his skin and he shivered in the dark.  But each day Peter would come, and Peter would hold him, and speak to him of kind things, and Alfred allowed it because Alfred believed he controlled Peter.  

And then a pirate killed Alfred, and Peter let Thomas go.

Peter unlocked the cell door.  Peter let loose Thomas’ chains.  He held Thomas’ back and helped him into a carriage.  Bathed him in warm water when they returned to _Thomas’_ home, now empty and idollent, and fucked him on a bed that smelled of dust.  Thomas sprawled on the mattress after sipping a tonic that Peter told him would help him feel calm after the hospital.  It did.  He felt calm and nothing else.

“Forgive me?” Peter asked of him, and Thomas forgave him.  But Peter kept asking.  The guilt eating away at him.  “Forgive me,” he’d ask as he caressed Thomas’ skin.  As he sank into his body.  As he kissed him.  

“Where are James and Miranda?” Thomas asked one morning, after what felt like weeks of wandering an empty house and listening to his clock chime out each hour.  Peter had asked him not to leave, so he hadn’t.  He’d stayed in the house.  He’d haunted his home.  He’d sat at the fireplace and drank his tonic and he tried to find something about this place that made him feel good and tender and well.

“I’ve written to them,” Peter promised him, kissing his jaw.  Kissing his hands.  He hadn’t stopped touching him since he had been first given blanket permission.  Thomas waits for someone to say something.  For someone to do something.  For a letter to arrive.  He waits, and forgives and forgives and forgives and--

“I’m sorry,” Peter said, then.  He tells Thomas that he needs to go to the colony, and he wants Thomas to come too.  “There’s a plantation...a place you can stay.  Where you can hide away until someone comes for you.  You can take what you like from here?”

Thomas told him to take the clock.  At the time, he’d thought it would be funny.  It felt like the only thing in this house that was going somewhere.  Besides...Thomas knows what Peter sounds like when he’s lying.  And a part of him knew even then that no one was coming.  No one had been informed.  

The world had thought he’d died.  Someone even told him as much on the journey to America.  In the paper it had been reported he’d committed self-murder in Bethlem.  James and Miranda would never come for him, and Peter was his only guardian.  His only source of income.  His only friend.  He didn’t argue when Peter brought him to the colonies.  Didn’t argue when he’s brought to a plantation where men cease to exist to the outside world.

“I’m not staying with you?” he dared to ask once.  But Peter only shook his head, telling him it was impossible.  “You should take the clock,” Thomas told Peter, then.  “To...remember me when I’m gone…”

Peter called him sweet.  Kissed him in a cabin Thomas had been told was all his own.  Promising to keep the clock in the parlor.  “I always think of you, and I always have,” Peter admitted, then. “You’re...the closest friend I’ve ever had.”

 _Yes,_ Thomas thought, dazed and somber.   _I was once._

Together they decorated the cabin.  Peter provided books and clothing.  Comfort and kindness.  He laughed and teased, and if Thomas set his mind to forgetting, he could find peace.  He set his thoughts to the side.  He focused on the present.  He relished in the time Peter spent with him.  He flourished.  

He asked a man to teach him how to fight, and he fought and fought and fought.  His skin had torn, then, because he’d fall.  He’d hit the ground.  He’d cut his shoulders on the dirt.  On the farm tools.  On the spades.  Peter had fret over each wound.  Had begged Thomas to tell him if he was being mistreated.  “I’m not,” Thomas had sworn.

And Peter hated it.  Accused him of playing pretend.  Of not truly wanting this life.  Thomas had stared at him and not known how to explain that masks are a part of his life.  Stories are a part of his life.  He cannot be who he wants to be to the world, and he cannot show who he wants to be to the world.

So he forced a smile, and said one thing to Peter.  Spoke words until Peter saw the truth Peter longed to see, and he watched the top of the gates out the window as Peter took his body but never his heart.  In those moments, Thomas spent his days wondering just _who_ Peter had intended to punish all those years ago.  And if this is not exactly where Peter had wanted him all along.

The thought carried him through until he heard Peter died at the hands of the same pirate who murdered Thomas’ father.  He should have felt something, and for years, he considered just what he was supposed to feel.  He missed Peter laughing at his side.  Missed the only companion he’d had, even if it had been an enforced companionship.  Even if Peter had caused all of it, the sudden absence of the _one_ person who cared had hurt more than he dared to admit.

But when James came to him, the one thing Thomas _never_ felt like saying, was exactly what Peter and he had done all those years when James burned the world to the ground in revenge.  Because the love Thomas had for Peter had been tarnished and ruined, and it had also been the only love he’d had in over a decade.

Peter had been responsible for the horrors in Thomas’ life.  He’d been responsible for Miranda’s death.  He’d been responsible for James’ descent into madness.  And Peter was _dead._ He was already _dead._ There was no one left to kill.  There was no one left to rage at.

What good did telling that story do for any of them?

More than that, what good would it possibly do James to hear just how much he’d failed?

 

***

 

John doesn’t take well to seeing James’ face bloodied and bruised.  He takes it far less well when he discovered exactly what caused it.  He glances between James and Thomas as if he’s intruding somewhere, and Thomas shakes his head firmly before John gets it in his head to run off.  

“He’s drunk, and miserable, and we all need sleep.  Come to bed,” Thomas beseeches.  John doesn’t move.  “Please?” It’s underhanded and wrong, but it does what it’s meant to do.  John slides in onto James’ other side and helps Thomas get him into bed.  

James apologizes for his behavior more than once, but Thomas doesn’t care to listen to him right now.  He doesn’t care to listen to anybody.  He eases James into bed, helps John get settled too.  He guides James so he’s resting against John, and John watches him.  Tense and uncomfortable.  

This isn’t how they do things.  This isn’t how Thomas wants to do things.  He hates putting John in positions that make him uncomfortable.  Right now, doing this, is making John uncomfortable.  He kisses John’s brow.  Climbs on James’ otherside, and pretends that he’s going to stay the night there.

James falls asleep after a few short minutes, still mumbling apologies and weeping without seeming to notice.  Tortured as they all have been tortured.  Thomas keeps his attention on the window.  Watching the pale moonlight as it filters through the night.  He’s not the only one awake, but neither he nor John have anything to say to one another now.  Not with James between them.

Still, John does the next best thing.  Even with James resting against his body, John shifts an arm and reaches out.  Holds his hand palm up and offers it to Thomas.  And as desperate as Thomas was to be alone and to not have any contact with anyone whatsoever, he won’t deny John when he asks like this.  

 

Neither of them sleep.

 

Come morning, Thomas gives up pretending.  He slips from the bed and isn’t surprised that John’s following him.  Isn’t surprised that John’s struggling to keep up.  A part of him wants to run off, leaving John behind like James had the night before.  But Thomas saw the pain on John’s face when he came in last night.  Saw the uncertainty, and the fear.  He’s still convinced they’re going to send him away any moment now.

So he waits.  He waits and lets John catch up.  Lets him hobble after him.  Feels John’s hand touch his shoulder for balance.  They make their way to the kitchen.  Then to the porch.  Thomas sits, and helps John sit, and they sit there together.  What a mess they’ve made.

“James told me you missed your guardian sometimes,” Thomas murmurs.  John doesn’t look at him.  Just reaches for a clump of matted grass and starts tugging at it like a child.  “The one who beat and raped you and your sister.”

“Randall,” John provides.  

“Randall,” Thomas agrees.  The name feels strange on his tongue, but he doesn’t care.  “I find myself missing the plantation.  More than I should.”

“Rules,” John offers.  “Rules and predictability.  You fall into a routine and the routine becomes your life.  It’s predictable.  Safe.  Nothing bad can happen because you know all there is to expect.”

“Yes.”  That’s exactly it.  No one to remind him of a daughter he never had.  Of cold baths he refused to take.  Of uncomfortable memories that wrapped around him like an ill fitting glove.  Thomas knew where he stood with Oglethorpe, he knew where he stood with Peter.  It didn’t feel _good_ , but it didn’t hurt like it hurts when someone you love reaches into your heart and tears everything to shreds.

There’s a boy at his side that has been through worse horrors than Thomas, and yet he doesn’t tell Thomas to deal with it.  He doesn’t tell him to ignore it.  He doesn’t tell him anything.  He just sits there and is silent, and Thomas loves this boy more than he has any right to love anyone.  John whispers, “I understand,” and Thomas believes him.

Believes him and even manages a smile.  “Sometimes I feel as though I could tell you I had horns and a tail and occasionally sprout wings from by back and you would look at me and tell me you’d understand and I’d believe you.  I would.”  John touches him now.  Leans his shoulder against Thomas’ and tilts his head so they can touch.  Skull to skull.  As though their thoughts could migrate between flesh and bone and hair and save them all the terrible embarrassment of lying or telling the truth to one another at precisely the inopportune moment.

But because they’ve not yet developed that ability, Thomas tells John about Peter.  Tells him in a voice so quiet not even _he_ can hear each word.  But he breathes them into life just at the cusp of John’s ear, and knows that no one but John can hear them.  “Would you have told him?” Thomas asks.  

“No,” John replies without the slightest hint of hesitation.  “No.” He pulls back, and it feels like Thomas should be preparing for the sting of a whip.  “But...I never tell the truth of where I’ve been.”

“It’s all true,” Thomas refutes.  “The names and dates and events and roles may change, but it’s always been true.”

John doesn’t address that.  Just shrugs.  Comes back in to lean close against Thomas’ shoulder.  The goat is wandering about her pen.  Chewing on some grass.  Staring at them with it’s goaty stare.  “It’s a gift, you know,” John says.  “Weaving stories, weaving tales.  You have to know which one works, and you have to know how to use it.  Saving them up for the time to strike.  It’s tactical and it’s painful, and it’s one of the most difficult skills to master, and even then...you truly must be born with the talent.  Otherwise it never rings sincere.”

“I told Peter stories,” Thomas admits.  

“And I told Randall stories,” John agrees.  “And we tell each other stories, and we convert people to our cause.  We make people listen.  We train them in our ways so that we cannot be overcome in a moment of distress. In a moment of weakness.  We show them the truth.  We say, here is an angel—can’t you see it?  And when they say they cannot, you convince them it’s there, and when they have faith they convert others to your cause so the whole world believes in you and your angel.  When no one could see the angel at all, but they all said they could because they were too ashamed to admit their eyes were blind.”

Thomas hums in agreement, “When you tell a lie long enough, eventually someone will think it’s true.  They’ll _remember_ it as something they once saw.  And so the story grows.”

“Long John Silver once stomped through the skull of a former brother with his metal boot and crushed it so there was nothing but  blood remaining.  Even the bone had been diminished into powder.  And then he laughed.”

“And the people followed?”

“Of course they did.  Peter followed you, didn’t he?”

Peter did everything Thomas asked of him.  He put the clock in the parlor so that one day, when Miranda and James came looking for _him,_ they would see it.  They would _know._  He took Thomas from Bethlem and bathed him in warm water.  He pressed his lips against Thomas’ and worshipped his body and Thomas let him think he was in love so he could have a comfortable living arrangement in Savannah and turn out the rest of the world.

Sometimes Thomas didn’t know which one was using which, or who was hurting who, but Thomas lied and Peter believed and it had all led to Miranda being shot in Peter’s parlor.  Peter waging war against pirate kind because of _Captain Flint._  Trying to murder every pirate he could because perhaps he’d get lucky and kill James.

Because he believed Thomas’ lies too well.  Because he wanted to keep Thomas when Thomas was never his to keep.  Because he thought there had ever been forgiveness in Thomas’ heart enough to accept the pain that Peter caused his family.

That’s the trouble with converts though, they believe the story more viscerally than those bearing the tale.  They need it to survive.  It becomes them.  It _is_ them.  Thomas led them all to this point just as much as James had, and it’s not shame that keeps him from telling James the truth on that score.  

It’s despair.

“When Helen died, we told ourselves that we’d never accounted for a child anyway.  That we had already accepted we’d never have one.  That our lives were complete without one.”

“Lying to yourself doesn’t work half as well as it should.” It’s the kind of thing a practiced liar would say.  Thomas snorts, and John snorts, and they bend over their knees and laugh at the tragedy of their reality.  “Sometimes, there’s simply no meaning to the horrors in your life.  And if you look for them, you’ll only find disappointment.  It happened.  You survived.  You’re here... _we’re_ all here.  And even if it’s not everyone, can we be enough?”

This time, when Thomas reaches for John, John doesn’t shy away.  Doesn’t pull back.  He meets Thomas in the middle.  He sighs against Thomas’ lips.  He lets Thomas hold him and Thomas relishes in the chance to pull John to his chest.  Cradle him against him and tell him, “You may have to remind me, sometimes.”

“I’m good at reminding people of things,” John promises.

 

Thomas believes him too.

 

***

 

James wakes at noon and Thomas is there.  He’d taken the day off work so he could look over him.  With a basin of cool water, he helps James clean his face.  “I’m sorry,” James tells him _again._  

 _Forgive me,_ Peter used to beg.  

Thomas sighs.  He sets his cloth down and he shakes the memory clear.  “Things are different now,” he starts.   _“We’re_ different.”  James looks at him without saying anything.  “There are things I can’t talk about with you.  Things that you won’t talk about with me.  And for this to work...between the two of us, three of us, four of us—it _cannot_ happen like it did last night.”

The bare minimum a relationship needs in order to succeed is the basis of an understanding as far as barriers are concerned.  Last night, they’d crossed more lines than either ever should have.  “There are things that we will never know about each other.  Things the past cannot erase.  Can you accept that?”

“If you ever...if you ever wanted to...needed to…” James falters.

“I know.” His partner nods.  Bows his head in contrition, and Thomas reaches for him.  Bestowing his forgiveness as he always does, and holding James’ oath dear.

The physicians were right.  You know what you want when you no longer have it.  And neither want that separation.  It is the last time either of them will ever come to blows with each other again. 


	18. The Cook's Tale

Thomas is working on the spine of a book for the Regis family.  Threading string and preparing to sew pages back into their proper place.  So absorbed in his work, he almost doesn’t notice the increased presence of people in town.  But after so many years with James, living like this, it’s hard not to.  He looks up just as a particularly loud gathering of pedestrians bustle past, and he has a strange sense of déja vu.  

Quietly setting the book to the side, he stands up and wipes his hands meaninglessly against his trousers.  Walking to the door and poking his head out.  “Whatever is going on?” he asks Kali as she passes by.  She’s got a handful of vegetables in her arms, and she smiles at him politely before taking a few steps closer.  

“There’s a Royal Navy ship in the harbor,” she tells him, hitching her things up higher in her arms so as not to lose her grip.  Ordinarily he would have offered her assistance, but at the moment, the words make his heart go cold.

“Navy,” he repeats dully.  He’d been far less startled by the knowledge of a pirate vessel. Kali’s staring at him expectantly and he shakes his head.  “Does John know?  He may want to ensure the rooms at the inn are prepared.”

“Yessir, he asked me to get some more things just in case, but he said the inn’s not so convenient for sailors to get up to being where it is.”  It’s a just point, but not one Thomas is willing to stake John’s life on.  He thanks her and encourages her to head back so she doesn’t need to carry her burden for longer than necessary.

Then, with a half hearted thought towards his job that he’s barely been able to attend to properly, he starts closing up for the day.  Even as quick as he is, by the time he’s collected his coat and his satchel, sailors (soldiers) have already started to walk the streets.  Their uniforms bright and respectable.  

Thomas’ stomach churns as he looks at the rich colors.  They’d been so beautiful on James’ body.  They’d made him look unbearably delectable that even in the first moments of their meeting, Thomas had wanted to feel.  He knows, now, that the blue is a semi-coarse material that’s durable and yet breathable.  It dries well and isn’t prone to shrinking when combined with the salt and water of the sea.

The buttons are held together with sturdy string and the seams along the arms are the easiest to break since they’re not designed to restrict fast movement when necessary.  James had to stitch his seams several times over the course of their affair together and it had been almost a mission Thomas had made.  Because seeing James sprawled in his bed stitching his uniform into place so no one would know turned his blood hot in ways it truly shouldn’t have.

Thomas locks the door to his shop.  He’s almost determined to ignore every single naval personnel in town, except he hears it.  Something he hadn’t thought he’d ever hear again.  He stops, not five feet from the door to his shop.  He tells himself he doesn’t have to turn to confirm.  He doesn’t have to _know._  He can ignore it, and continue ignoring it.

But then he considers.   _What if it’s true...what if something happens because I didn’t check…?_

He turns his head.  And for the first time in a long while, he wonders if God is testing him.

 

***

 

John and James are both in the kitchen of the inn.  They’re arguing about soup of all things.  James thinks there should be more potatoes, John thinks James is a sadist.  It’s the kind of argument that would have ordinarily made Thomas smile.  Grateful that at least they’re all getting onto better footing considering how difficult the past few days have been.  

But the night before, Thomas had held John to his chest as James surrounded them with his monkey like arms.  Securing them both to his body.  Possessively whispering _mine_ in Thomas’ ear, just loud enough so John heard and shivered in Thomas’ arms (pressing back against his body in a wordless _yes_ that made Thomas’ heart sing).

“The Navy’s decided to dock in Savannah,” Thomas announces, cutting through their bickering about spuds.  He gets twin looks of disinterest, and Thomas can’t help but wonder how such two clever men could be so utterly stupid.  “John’s signed a pardon, my _dear,”_ Thomas grits out.  “I don’t suppose you have?”

At that, James finally has the decency to look _somewhat_ abashed.  Shrugging his shoulders and poking at a potato of miniscule proportions.  “It’s not as though John’s pardon covers any of the time he spent _afterwards_ privateering.”

Honestly. _Privateering._  Is that what they’re calling it now?  

John just shrugs his shoulders, snatching at the potato before James can cut into it and tossing it back into the bag with the rest.  “Unless one of the hundreds of slaves I set free has seen fit to inform the British Navy that _I’m_ responsible for such a thing, then there’s not a soul left alive who can say I was.  Enough with the fucking potatoes.”  

“You didn’t leave anyone alive?” Thomas asks, momentarily distracted.  The question seems to catch John off guard, as if he’d presumed Thomas already knew such a thing.  And while he’s distracted James goes to fetch back the discarded spud without even the slightest shred of decency or respect to the important topic at hand.

He’s already started cutting into it while John adjusts his position and waves his hand awkwardly in the air.  “I’d signed a pardon, and I needed to keep Madi and her people safe.  If anyone _knew_ what we were doing…” He’s got that look on his face, like he’s preparing himself to be discarded once more.  He’s rallying himself for an argument that Thomas doesn’t particularly want to make right now.

“It doesn’t bother you?  Cold blooded murder?”  The question causes James’ knife to smack loudly against the cutting board, but even with such obvious attention drawn to him and his spud, John doesn’t turn to look.  Just meets Thomas’ eyes.

“Not if it’s for the right cause.” He’s not surprised by Thomas’ questioning.  He’s not taken aback.  He’s meeting Thomas’ eyes straight on, and he’s...curious.  A state that Thomas is quite happy to leave him in.  

Right now, he has only one priority.  “In any case, James I think it’d be best if you waited this... _visit_ out at home.  We don’t need anyone recognizing you and declaring you a pirate.”  

When Thomas first told James about the pardons, he’d watched James’ face go through an extraordinary amount of expressions before settling on dumb acceptance.  He’d been too taken aback to put up much of a fight naturally, but then he’d committed himself to the cause because he’d had so much resentment for how Alfred had treated Thomas and Miranda that it had overtaken his natural hesitancy.  This, now, is a similar effect.

James’ incredulity comes out first, then his confusion, and his uncertainty, and then his natural attempt to circumvent logic.  “I hardly think that anyone will recognize _me_ —”

“—and if they _do,_ you’ll have not one thing to say to your defence, and no Charles Vane to get you free from the hangman’s noose,” John cuts in.

“The _what?”_ Thomas asks.  John’s mouth falls open as if he’s going to explain, but then he stops.  Looks between Thomas and James and rolls his eyes towards the heavens.  

James has the decency to look slightly embarrassed by that as well, and doesn’t say a thing on the topic.  “You just want me to go home then?  Waiting and doing nothing.”

“You could always read a book,” John offers while Thomas is still trying to come to terms with the fact that apparently at some point James had nearly been _hung._ “You like that.”

He brings a hand to his head.  Rubbing at his temples and trying not to imagine what it would look like.  Trying not to think about James swinging.  His stomach churns.  He’s going to be sick.  In his head he keeps hearing the quick drop and sudden stop of Davy Something-or-Other.  He can hear the crowd in his ears and the nausea only rises.  “Thomas?”

Resting one hand against the wall he steadies the vertigo that’s threatening to send him to his knees.  He looks up.  James is here.  He’s alive.  He’s not swinging from a rope or locked in a gibbet for all the world to laugh at.

Nothing can stop him from reaching for James.  From wrapping his arms around James’ body.  From holding him close and feeling his heart beating against his chest.   _Alive._ He’s _alive._ And Thomas’ resolve only strengthens.  “I need you to go home,” Thomas says.  “I need no one to recognize you.”

This time, there is no argument.  

James accepts the provisions as they are.  He tells John not to keep fucking up in the kitchen and John rolls his eyes at him.  It’s subdued from their usual banter, but Thomas isn’t in the mood to listen.  “Come home with us?”

“I have the inn, and no one’s looking for me.”

“John.”  He’s already imagined James swinging by his throat, he will not do the same for him.  Not now.  Not when the pains of the past few days are still so present in all of them.  He won’t do it.  John hates it when Thomas tries to manipulate him, but it doesn’t seem to matter much.  He casts a half panicked look toward James, and the matter’s decided.  

Someone else can manage the inn.  For tonight at least, and really— that’s all Thomas needs.  He just needs James and John at the house for tonight.  He hasn’t exactly thought through all the parts of this plan appropriately, but he’ll get there in the end.  He’ll find the answer he’s looking for soon enough.

Smiling when John finally nods, and goes to inform his staff that he’s heading back home and to inform him if there are any complications, Thomas turns to James.  He thanks him sweetly, smiling when James’ brows furrow and his mouth presses into a confused line.  He doesn’t like this.  Doesn’t like anything about it, but Thomas doesn’t care.  He wants James home right now.  That’s all that matters.

They walk back together, taking note if they hear anyone coming to avoid showing their faces to the world.  No naval personnel comes their way and that’s good.  All of it’s good.  

But inside the house Thomas can feel the tension.  Can feel how John doesn’t enjoy being corralled back at home.  How he wants to go outside and work and do something to keep busy.  James is easier to settle into complacency.  Thomas makes tea, fetches him a book.  Sets him up so he can enjoy an afternoon in the sun.  

His hair is longer now than it’s been in ages, and he’s taken to tying it back like he used to in the navy.  Black ribbon and all.  He looks little like the pirate lord that had been deposited into the prison farm all those years ago.  He’s just a man, now.  A man that no one should have any interest in.  

And one no one would recognize as Captain Flint.  

John’s harder to forget or ignore, but it seems that his name has started to be one of those little legends that people tell.  No one so much as bats an eye when he says it and he isn’t shy in using it.  It’s like they don’t believe him, and the few times Thomas has heard someone ask if he’s _the_ John Silver, he’s always laughed and said that it’s the most horrid of coincidences, and the stranger is taken in by John’s carefree charm.

It won’t matter to the navy.  They’ll look at John and they’ll _know._ They’ll pester him, they’ll question him.  They’ll interrogate him.  They’ll _know._ Just like they’ll _know_ about James.  And Thomas won’t let it happen.  He categorically won’t.  

Reaching into his satchel he asks John to join him in his room, James glancing up only briefly to watch them go.  John’s all but vibrating in his own skin, desperate to do something.  To be done with this charade.  Thomas can read the emotions so clearly.  They’ve come to know each other so very well.

“Why are we really here, Thomas?” John asks as Thomas pulls a clutch of papers from his bag and hands them to him.  

They’re Madi’s letters.  All forty-six of them.  “You tore the early ones, I thought you might want to read them now...especially seeing as she’s coming home soon.”  It’s underhanded, and it’s meant to be.  John stares at the letters.  Open want on his face.  His fingers tighten and he stumbles to get to the bed and lower himself down.  Looking at Thomas’ neat handwriting.

Thomas had never intended to show John like this.  Never intended to use the letters as a weapon, as a tool.  He’d wanted to give John them so he could be glad of them.  So he could find peace.  Comfort.  But John’s looking at them and doing exactly what Thomas wants.  He’s sitting still.  He’s sitting still, and he’s reading letters that have no end, and Thomas cannot help but wondering what the end of this all might be.

“I just want you safe, John,” Thomas tells him.  There are tears in his boy’s eyes.  But John turns the next page, and continues reading.  He doesn’t say anything.

And that’s fine too.

 

***

 

_Dearest John,_

 

_It has been less than three days since I left you and the McGraws.  Mr. Hands and I have travelled a good distance, but not nearly as far as one would think.  I have been melancholy since our departure, thinking of you and the life that we could have had.  There are many thoughts guiding my hand as I write this letter, but the chief among them is to convey my most ardent wish that I cherish you deeply.  Forgive me, my dearest John.  I could not have stayed._

_You shall be pleased to know that Mr. Hands is most attentive to my needs and has treated me with the utmost respect during our journey.  While many here in the Americas believe me to be his slave, he has not allowed such assumptions to dictate our actions.  We have eaten well in good places, and have not been troubled by local men or women._

_I wish you all the love and tenderness in my heart._

 

_~ Madi_

 

_***_

 

_John,_

 

_I apologize for the brevity of this letter but I find that I am short on time.  Mr. Hands and I have been given permission to travel with a group of Cherokee Indians.  I am interested in their culture and their presence here, and our guide is descended from both a tribe I know of in Sierra Leone and the Indians here.  I’m interested in understanding them more.  I wish you well._

 

_~ Madi_

 

_***_

 

_J,_

 

_I have been learning a great deal about the colonies during my travels.  These colonies are unique and independent from one another.  It feels as though one could step from one to the next and not realize they are walking the same land.  Breathing the same air, so different is this world.  Pennsylvania is nothing like the wilds of Georgia, and I find that I miss the way the wind feels, warm and soft.  Things are different here in the north.  The land is hard.  The buildings rough.  There is a smell in the air that is uncomfortable.  And yet these people consider themselves to be philosophers.  They discuss politics and they discuss the state of the world._

_I have read many new works and walked the halls of libraries and the chambers of politics.  Yet these people do not act on their discussions.  They debate with words but they never do more than talk.  I cannot help but consider the possibility that they do not know what they want, and they find themselves immobile because of it.  They create obstacles for themselves by their pamphlets and laws, but they insist that they are more civil minded than others.  I cannot help but believe that such thoughts are not true._

_But with little frame of reference into the inner workings of the politics of the southern colonies, I am also ill equipped to hold an opinion on how their structure may be improved.  I need to learn more.  I need to understand more._

 

_~M_

 

_***_

 

Nothing happens the next day.  

Nor the day after.

The Navy continues to walk the town, and Thomas continues to jump at shadows.  Turning his head each time he hears a voice echoing over the wind, as though he could recognize it.  As though he _knew._ He sees faces he knows can’t possibly be real and he shakes images from his mind.  

It’s impossible to live like this for long, and after four days—he can’t keep John from the kitchen of the Inn.  James agreed to at least stay at the house and read, but John won’t sit still.  So Thomas stands awkwardly nearby, loitering in the door of the kitchen so he can keep an eye on both the front and back of the house.  Waiting.

_Waiting._

“Are you all right?” John asks him for what feels like the tenth time.  He hasn’t approached yet, nor has he bothered to get too close to Thomas in general.  But he watches Thomas through his lashes and Thomas is keenly aware that John’s capable of seeing _everything_ and always has been.

“I was thinking of the _Cook’s Tale,”_ Thomas admits off handedly.

 

 

> And so his master gave him his acquittance,  
>  And bade him go with sorry luck: "Good riddance!"   
>  And so this jolly prentice left. Let him   
>  Now revel all the night if that's his whim.   
>  And as there is no thief without ally                        
>  To help embezzle, squander, or come by   
>  All he can steal or borrow in some way,   
> He sent his bed and clothes without delay

 

John’s got a good mind for poetry.  It falls off his tongue like something that had been burned into his memory.  Reciting things just as Thomas had learned in Eton as a school boy.  Phrases wrapping around his clever tongue as easily as air.  “Why that one?” John asks.  He’s chopping up another endless row of potatoes, his most recent argument with James over the use of spuds gone entirely unheeded.

“It’s unfinished,” Thomas replies.  “Sometimes...you just want an ending.”

John makes a noise in the back of his throat.  Something dismissive and uncaring.  “Well, put an end to some of these potatoes will you?  I need to get some carrots.” Eager to do something with his hands, Thomas stepped forward.  Relieving John of his knife and slicing the way he’s seen John and James slice potatoes.  

John’s crutch thunks loudly as he moves outside.  Thomas can keep track of his movements from in here.  Listen as he gets what he needs to get.  For half a moment, Thomas even starts to consider that maybe he’d been worried for nothing.  Maybe everything will be fine.

The front door of the inn opens, and John’s voice carries him inside.  Thomas sets his potato down and moves to the kitchen, freezing in the door as everything seems to fade away.  The walls and floor and tables and chairs of the inn all dissipate into vague colors and in elegant slashes of light.  John’s settling a new patron at a table and charming the man with all the standard care and consideration of a good innkeeper.

He’s smiling and he’s laughing, and the man before him is intrigued by John’s voice and happy to listen.  He doesn’t know any better.  He doesn’t know anything.  Thomas could walk away now, and nothing would change.

Only.

“Do you have any family then?” John asks innocently.

“None, I’m afraid,” the man answers with a shrug of his shoulders.  “I’ve never been blessed in that regard.”  

And the end of the story could have been that James and Thomas and Madi and John lived happily ever after with Israel and Israel’s baby and Israel’s quaker lady.  The story could have ended where they were never discovered and they lived in perfect harmony for all the rest of their days.

That could have been an ending.

But like the Cook’s tale, it’s not an ending that’s ever heard.

Thomas turns the knife in his hand.  He takes ten steps across the room, and just as John looks up to see what he’s doing, just as the man starts to turn as he becomes aware of Thomas’ presence, Thomas uses the handle of the knife to drive a brutal blow against the back of the man’s head.  

He’s unconscious before he even falls from his chair, and Thomas is tempted to laugh hysterically, because he thought they might have had an ending already planned out: but then things change, and like Chaucer, he has no idea where to go from here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a bit of a joke, this chapter is both short and abrupt- just like the Cook's Tale. Unfortunately when you write chapters based on the tales of Chaucer, that happens.


	19. The Monk's Tale

_“What the hell did you just do?”_ Thomas is standing over the elderly man, knife still held firmly in his grip like he’s considering finishing the job.  It would be nothing for Thomas to turn the blade around and stab the sailor where he lay, but John’s not nearly in the mood.  

He’s already crouched down, holding his hand over the man’s mouth to see if he’s still breathing.  There’s blood at the sailor’s temple and a bruise is already forming.  He’s unconscious but alive, and John thanks God that no one else is in the inn to see what’s happening.  “Fucking _Christ,_ Thomas, what was that?”

The look Thomas gives John is raging and hot.  Glaring and rough.  His fingers tighten around the handle of his knife and he _spits_ the words out so forcefully John can feel wet across his face.  “That’s James’ father.”

John doesn’t think he’s ever seen Thomas so mad, but there’s true fury and hate in Thomas’ voice.  Fury and hatred and course coals burning incandescent in the quiet of their inn.  John blinks.  His mind spins.  It swirls about like the spiraling of Charybdis.  He struggles to take a deep breath in to calm the emotions in his chest.  “Are you sure?” he asks slowly.  

Thomas _glares._ “Am I _sure_ this is the man who betrayed James and dismissed him from the Navy and sent him and my wife out of London without even a word or offer of help and let my father put me in Bethlem on the word of my _supposed_ friend?  Yes I’m blood well _sure,_ John Silver.”

“He said he didn’t have any family.”

“I _know_ what he said!” Never, in all the time John had known him, had John ever heard Thomas raise his voice.  Not like this.  Not so his voice echoes off the corners of the inn, seeming to thrash against the walls like the angry lashings of Scylla.  

John holds up his hands.  “I had to make sure,” he justifies smoothly.  He knows how to deal with anger.  How to redirect rage.  It’s a matter of deflecting.  A matter of pushing the fury off to something else.  Speaking calm and cool and serving as a temperate barometer until the injured party finally relents.  

And in the meanwhile...  

There’s an unconscious man on John’s floor.  First thing’s first.  “Help me get him upstairs.”  Thomas looks absolutely revolted by the suggestion.  “I cannot carry him on my own,” John tells him firmly.  “So help me get him up off this floor before someone sees what a mess you’ve made _for Christ’s sake.”_  

When Thomas still shows no efforts to move, John leans in close.  “Any moment now that door is going to open and someone is going to see what happened.  This is a _fucking_ Admiral, Thomas, and _someone_ is going to notice him.  So help me get him upstairs and out of sight, or you’re going to have to explain to the whole of the navy and beyond just how an Admiral got assaulted in this inn.  Now _help_ me get him upstairs.”  

And _finally,_ Thomas moves.

There’s no time to get someone else to assist, and John wouldn’t trust a third party as it is.  John’s not leaving Thomas alone with the sailor if he can help it.  Even knowing that Thomas could kill the man with or without John’s permission, if John’s mere presence can delay things then he’ll take every precious second he can manage.  

While Thomas reaches down and hoists the Admiral’s body up over his shoulder to be dragged up the steps, John tries to work out exactly what they’re going to do.  There’s _murder_ in Thomas’ eyes, and John doesn’t doubt that Thomas can invent some terrifying way to destroy the man if he so chose.  Mind scrambling through his memories for a damn _name,_ John’s almost glad that Thomas finally grunts it under his breath in a curse.

Hennessey.  Admiral Hennessey.  

 _All right._ John can work with that at least.

Pushing open a door, he stands to the side as Thomas deposits James'  _father_ onto the floor in an ungraceful heap.  Watching dispassionately as his limbs flop to the ground in all directions.  Thomas even has the bad temper to spit on him in his fury.  It’s frightening.  John’s never seen him like this before.  Even after Thomas and James had their fight, Thomas had seemed more worn and drained then truly irate.  And when he’d described Peter’s actions to John on the steps that night...he’s d been exhausted.  Lonely.  But not livid.  

Perhaps the blame had merely been channelled into a different venue.  Thomas’ parents were already dead, and that just left one man alive who betrayed them and abandoned them to their fates.  One man, now sprawled on the floor by Thomas’ own hand.

_Fucking hell._

“Go downstairs and lock the door, tell the staff that we’re closed for the day because of repairs and that we’ll manage it on our own.”  He can see Thomas wanting to argue, but John cuts him off before he can.  “Unless you _want_ to get interrupted?”  Thomas doesn’t.  So he leaves.  Quickly.  His feet thundering against the steps as he makes his way out.  

That gives John time to crouch at Hennessey’s side and start figuring out how to bind the man.  It’s difficult to hoist him up, but he manages to get him upright at least.  The wound is still bleeding a steady amount, but it doesn’t seem particularly deep.  That’s good.  Pulling weapons from Hennessey’s body, he sets them to the side for later inspection and use.  He unthreads the man’s belt and loops it about Hennessey’s feet to keep him immobile.  Then tugs the man’s blue coat down over his shoulders and starts binding the sleeves together to lock his arms in place.  

By the time Thomas has returned John’s got the situation almost well in hand.  It’s not perfect, but it’s something.  It’ll be enough to keep Hennessey motionless so long as they’re there to make sure he doesn’t try wriggling free at least.  And John has no intentions of leaving the man alone _at all._

“You could have killed him,” John chastises quietly as Thomas closes and locks the door.  They’ve got the inn to themselves.  Perfect place for a murder apparently. _Damn it all to hell._

“I intended to.”  He did not.  He’d have used the knife’s blade if he had.  But Thomas sounds braver than he actually is and John won’t take that away from him at least.  “I _intend_ to fix that mistake now.”

“You’ll be arrested for murder and then what?” John snaps back.  He reaches for the pistol he’d set aside earlier.  Checks its powder and its ball.  It’s ready to fire whenever Hennessey wishes to fire it.  The sword, similarly is sharpened and shined and in perfect condition.  

Sometimes it’s impossible to think that Thomas likens himself as John’s father figure.  Impossible in so many absurd ways.  Not the least of which is how he’s standing by the door like a petulant child.  Simmering with rage and hatred while John is forced to deal with the more practical parts of Thomas’ decisions.  

Decisions that still have Thomas stroking the handle of his knife like he’s not sure what he wants to do with it.  It’s a fucking potato peeler, not a dagger for _Christ’s sake._ “What exactly was your plan?” John presses when Thomas remains quiet for just a touch too long.

“James killed my parents,” Thomas reminds.

It’s not an answer to John’s question, and he growls low in his throat.  Disgust filling him to the brim.  “And so you intend to kill his?  In retaliation?”

“No!” _Finally_ the angry miasma that had been around Thomas from the start has started to lift.   _Finally_ he starts to seem like he’s managed to get his head more firmly placed on his shoulders.  He blinks at John like John’s inept, and John blinks right back because _fuck him_ they are not having this conversation through meaningful blinks.

“Then what exactly is it because you’ve got only a few minutes to explain before he wakes up and we have to deal with him.”

“I don’t want James to do it himself.”

 _Liar._ “James is still at the house, completely closeted away from the Navy so no one knew he was here.  No one would even _know_ Hennessey was here, and for that matter-- James has never mentioned any desire to blame Hennessey for any of this.”

“ _He hurt him!”_

“What was he supposed to do!?” John shouts back.  

Thomas recoils.  His mouth falls open and he stares at John like he’s somehow sprouted multiple heads.  He looks so lost, that for a moment John’s sorry he pushed.  But he’s not _that_ sorry, and he doesn’t back down.  “What was Hennessey supposed to do when a peer of the realm came to him with empirical evidence that James was a sodomite?  What was Hennessey supposed to do?  Refute it?  Your father would have gone to any one of the other sea lords and had James _hung_.”

It’s too close to the revelation that James had nearly met that fate at Peter’s hand.  Thomas flinches, and John wishes he could say it was good to see it.  It’s not.  He hates doing this.  Hates how Thomas looks as he stands there, uncertainty creeping in.  Thomas may be proficient at arguing, but he’s too emotionally invested in _this_ argument.  He cannot see the forest for the trees, and John can.  

“He ejected James from the Navy,” Thomas says.  Tight and angry and still so very upset.

“He made it so James wasn’t arrested for buggery.”

“He let my father take me aw--”

“-- _You_ were not his responsibility.” He’s hurting Thomas.  Striking him over and over and leaving him with nowhere else to turn to.  Nowhere else to go.  John hates seeing Thomas like this.  Hates seeing him off kilter and upset.  Hates seeing him look confused and perplexed.

But none of that matters.

If Thomas murders Hennessey right here and right now, _none of it will matter._  Everything that John had sacrificed will be for _nothing._ Thomas will be taken away and the whole story will start all over again.  James raging at the world and John trying desperately to stop it.  The fighting and the anger and the pain and the rage will burn and burn until they’re all torn to pieces and they’re all left with nothing.

He can’t let it happen.

He _won’t_ let it happen.

He did this so Thomas and James could be together, so Madi would be safe.  And he will not jeopardize any aspect of the future he secured for them by letting Thomas do this.  Not here.  Not now.  Not ever.

Hobbling closer to Thomas, he rests his weight on his crutch and lifts his hands to cup Thomas’ face.  “Why do you want him dead?”

“You _know_ why.”

“No, I don’t.  I know details of a story, and I cannot possibly know why _here,_ in _this_ moment, you want this man dead.  So tell me.  Tell me right now why he should be killed.  Tell me so I can believe it.”

“He betrayed James.”

Not good enough.  “I’ve betrayed James.”

Thomas scowls at him.  Pulls out of John’s touch and shakes his head.  He starts to pace.  Unhappy and incapable of standing still.  He rotates a ring around his finger and he shakes his head again and again and again.  Like he’s trying to knock loose a thought that’s attached to the inside of his skull, desperate to have it come to the forefront of his mind as a weapon he can use against John.  “He let James believe that he was a _monster._ He told him as much!”

Monster.

It’s an ugly word.

A word that James _has_ used to define himself by.  Over and over and over.   _They call us monsters and then tell children to stay close to the light._ John feels his innards crawling.  He knows full well the damage someone can do if they hold a place in your heart and then tear it to pieces.

He knows full well how it feels when someone you love and respect whispers words that can never be undone.   _Where else will you matter?_

_I’m John Silver from nothing and nowhere._

Pain.  Blinding pain as his leg is taken from him over and over, hands pressing down on his body as he screams _I don’t want this.  I don’t want this._ Living a life that he never wanted because he was constantly _put_ there.

This is vengeance in its truest form, retaliation at its finest.

And it’s also wrong.

“What else,” John grits out, “could he say?”

Thomas looks like a man who’s been struck blind.  Who’s been slapped so cruelly across the face he cannot comprehend the action just occurred.  He shakes his head again and again, and he brings a hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose, and John stands there because he has to.

He has to.

Hennessy starts to wake.  Eyes squeezing a touch before slowly blinking open.  Consciousness drifting back in pieces.  Thomas bares his teeth and seems ready to show just how deadly he can be with his potato knife, but John places a hand on Thomas’ to steady him.  “Wait.”

Of all the people in their home, John never thought Thomas would be one for violent reactions toward people from the past.  Granted, with most in Thomas and James’ past connections already dead there’s hardly much room for such experiments.  John’s still trying to work out how to manage this conversation when Hennessy finally manages to take stock of his predicament in full.

He looks to John, and then looks past him to Thomas, and any hope John had that this really _wasn’t_ Admiral Hennessey is gone in an instant.  The man’s face goes pale and his eyes widen.  He whispers “Lord Hamilton…”

And Thomas spits back, “It’s just _Thomas_ now, or did you forget your part in my expulsion?”  They can’t do this.  Thomas can’t stay here in this room and be confronted with this man who will do nothing but ignite more fire and anger in Thomas’ already burning heart. There’s nothing for it.  

Decision made, John steps more fully between Thomas and Hennessey, and places a hand on Thomas’ chest.  “Go get James,” John orders his friend, partner, companion.  It’s said firmly enough to distract Thomas just a little.  He blinks at John incredulously, and John doesn’t care.   _“Now.”_

Thomas’ voice is nearing something satanic as he growls, “Have you taken leave of your senses?”

He says, “Not compared to you,” in response, and draws himself up as best he can.  Tilting his chin to show he’s not intimidated by Thomas’ obscene height difference.  “James killed _your_ father because he had no way of knowing you were alive and could not consult with you on your opinion on the matter.  You are not so hindered.  Go fetch him and bring him back.”

“Why don’t _you_ do it?” Rarely does John feel the need to hide behind his leg, but this time he takes the excuse as it’s offered.  He flicks a hand to his crutch and leg to make it perfectly clear why not.  Thomas is not impressed.  “Why can’t one of your staff go?”

“Do you really want _another_ person to bear witness to this?”  Thomas wants him to admit that John doesn’t trust Thomas with Hennessey alone, but he won’t fall for that.  Not here and now.  Not when it won’t help matters at all.  Not when it could possibly give Thomas something to think about that John doesn’t _want_ him to think about.

John knows full well that Thomas hates being ordered.  It chafes at something in the very fibrous makeup of Thomas’ body.  He doesn’t like the commands or the insinuation that he needs to listen to them.  He doesn’t like how they sound or how it chafes.  He grits his teeth against them.  Gnashes at the bit.  He wants to kill Hennessey, not bring James here to face it himself.

“It’s not your decision,” John reiterates.  “It’s _James’ father_ .  It’s _his_ choice.  Not yours.”

And by saying that, by distracting as he does, Thomas doesn’t see that John lying.  Thomas doesn’t see that John’s posturing.  Doesn’t see that he’s just trying to get Thomas to leave the room.  He sags.  He lets himself get prodded out the door.  He leaves without so much as another glance in Hennessy’s direction.  

He doesn’t realize that John agreed with him from the onset.

Someone who makes James feel like he’s a monster and has something to be ashamed of _shouldn’t_ be allowed to survive.  That John feels _just_ as angry as Thomas about everything.  But it’s not Thomas who should do this, and _that_ is why John lies.  Because James may want many things, but John knows most of all: James wants Thomas happy.  Happy and unburdened by a past that sought to change them entirely.

As the door shuts behind Thomas, John reaches for the latch, and locks it with a twist of his fingers.  He turns back to look at Hennessy then, who’s been silent this whole while.  Silent and keenly observant.  “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” Hennessy asks him.

And he knows.

John picks up the sword he’d removed from the man earlier.  He holds it in front of himself and tests the weight in his hand.  It’s something far fancier than the cutlass he used to wield in battle.  Lighter and more cleverly balanced.

Unbidden the smell of sea air and the echo of James’ training tingles against his senses.   He shakes the memory loose.  

“It will take Thomas seven minutes to run to the house, another two or three to explain what’s happened, and James only four to make the journey over.” John explains it all very carefully.  Emotionlessly.  He feels the age old pull of a pirate’s legend starting to wrap its skeletal hands around his ankle.  Hands crawl up his body and slide around his throat.  Fingers push into his mouth and he is choked by the past.  It envelops him in all its ghastly nature, until he is utterly transformed.  Reborn once again as Long John Silver.  He leaves the retired innkeeper to drown in a pot of potato stew.  He raises his sword.

“James,” Hennessy says the name with a kind of dulled awe.  He must have known after all of this that James McGraw was who they were fetching, but it seems to only now have sunk in and taken hold as a reality.  As a possibility.  “You believe he’ll come faster than Thomas was able to reach him?”

“I think he knows what Thomas doesn’t.”  

Hennessy breathes harshly through his nose.  He sways slightly.  Head likely bothering him.  John hasn’t bothered to wipe the blood off his face or collar.  He watches the cut dully as it drips down the crest of the man’s pointed cheeks.  Slapping soundlessly against the man’s shirt.  It stains it a shade darker, and another droplet soon follows its path.  Hennessy dares to press his luck, asks, “What does he know?”

So John responds as honestly as a man like him can respond, “That I’ll kill you now, when noone is watching, so Thomas won’t have to.”  He made every choice in the past few years with James in mind.  With Madi in mind.  With Thomas in mind.  The three of them were his world at peace and he will not allow Thomas to torture himself with thoughts of cold blooded murder.  Not even if the one he killed was a man he hated.  Because Thomas would always know that in his heart, James loved Admiral Hennessey as a father.  And despite what James had done to Alfred, Thomas doesn’t need to balance these scales.

And John knows that this will torment Thomas until the end of his life.  He will keep Hennessy as a demon on his shoulder.  He will submit himself to the wrath of God and the church for where he can not find love a topic to find shame in--he can find hate.  He can find shame in offering judgment and hate towards someone and cursing them because of it.

Thomas is a personification of forgiveness and he could never forgive _himself_ for plainly _murdering_ someone regardless of his emotions.  He’d blame himself eventually.  Perhaps not now, when Hennessy’s eyes were still on him.  But next week, next month...when James becomes aware of what has transpired, Thomas will regret his action.  He will hurt himself for need of seeking forgiveness.

And John won’t let that happen.

John knows full well that Thomas hurts when no one is looking.  He knows that Thomas suffers about items no one thinks he is suffering about.  He _knows_ Thomas.  And Thomas will be upset and hurt and devastated that John did this, but Thomas will have James and he won’t have murdered a man.  James can help Thomas through John’s loss.  James can get him across to the otherside.  They’ll be there for each other.  Just like they always wanted.

“You told him that James deserved a choice,” Hennessy reminds.

It’s such a simple thought.  And John shrugs, says: “I lied,” and that’s it.  Hennessy bows his head in concession and John rests the end of the man’s own blade against his throat.  He has less than ten minutes before James bursts through that door and puts a stop to this.  “Tell me why I should let you live long enough to hurt him more.”

Because that’s what it comes down to.  If Hennessy intends to spout more vitriol at James, John won’t hesitate.  If he intends to break the man more than he already has broken, then it will be worth all the chastisement in the world.  He will be the ship needed to carry them through the storm, he will throw away all the happiness he thought he could achieve with James and he will live only in half forged memories of peace, all for the chance that it will keep James’ heart from breaking even more than it has.

He’s only a man.  He cannot take much more abuse.  Regardless of how strong he is.  John readies himself to pierce through Hennessy’s throat.  Readies himself to say goodbye to this inn and these people.  He’ll walk away and he’ll find Madi on the road if he has to.  He’ll drag himself to the ends of the earth to remove himself from James’ view if that’s what it will take.  But at least James won’t be shattered by this bastard disguised as a friend.  A father.  

“There’s nothing I can say to you to convince you of that,” Hennessy tells him.  It’s true. But it’s how he says it.  Resigned.  Relieved almost.  Grateful in a way.  As though John killing him now would save him from what lay ahead.  Save him from the prospect of seeing James...of confronting someone he cared for as his own child.  John lowers his sword.  He grins toothily.

“You’re afraid,” he accuses.  And there it is.  A taste of fear.  John can taste it in the air.  Smell it against his nostrils.  Hennessey isn’t afraid of dying, no that seems more than obvious now.  The edge of the blade had been prepared to slide right through his throat, and the man had taken that with more dignity than a sniveling coward deserved.  

But the thought of seeing James... _that_ struck fear in the man’s heart.  John lowers the sword, and starts to laugh.  Hennessey stares at him like he’s lost his mind, and perhaps he has.  But when James throws open the front door to the inn, several minutes too soon, John throws the latch on the room and lets James shoulder his way in to see for himself that Hennessey is just as alive as Thomas left him.

“What, were you afraid I’d returned to my murderous ways already?” John teases as James looks between Hennessey and him in what can only be described as abject horror and confusion.  

Then, seemingly gratified that no slaughter has been committed in his name, James turns his back on the scene and shuts the door.  Thomas hadn’t come with him.  Strange.  He would have thought that he’d have returned to stand here at James’ side.

Still.

John does the decent thing and puts the sword away.  He claims a seat by the window and lowers himself into it with a resigned sigh of relief.  Removing the presence of Long John Silver in his mind will take time.  John can still feel the old pirate’s wrath as it thrashes angrily in his skull, but sitting helps.  Helps keep him focused and aware and separate.  He knows how to command from his seat, knows how to use a stool like a throne to bark orders and cast aspersions.

But Long John Silver has only ever followed one man faithfully and truly, and James is here.  James is here now, and if he makes a command to stop everything, John will listen.  He _will._ James may be the _only_ person John will listen to.

So he sits, and struggles to hold onto his conscious state of mind, and tries not to think of Thomas as he inspects the sharp lines of James’ back.  The shirt that sticks to it that’s damp with sweat.  James is breathing hard through his nose and his fingers are tight against the door.  From where he’s sitting, John can make out a good portion of James’ face.  Eyes squeezed shut and nostrils flaring.  “Suppose it would have been easier if I _had_ just killed him,” John prods.  Needling him because it’ll be the only way to move this along.  

Hennessey glances at John as though he’s an incorrigible twit.  And it’s true.  He is.  He’s also James’ best friend, and so he doesn’t care in the least about pestering the man until he does something more helpful than stand there like a lumpet.  “Of course, I can always do so now if you prefer.”  That gets half an unamused glare, and at least that’s progress.  

He really had guessed John’s intentions, and John should feel flattered by it.  But really, he just feels tired.  An endless swell of exhaustion takes him over and he wonders what it would feel like to just lie his head down and go to sleep.  He wants to go home.  “Though to be fair, I’m _amazed_ it took this long for us to have our first murder in the inn.  I mean, can you believe it took us this long?  I could have sworn it’d happen in the first week.  We should have taken a bet.”

“There was one,” James replies, finally turning around.  “Your wife won.”

If he intends to make John flinch, he’s successful.  John doesn’t need James’ eyes on him to feel the weight of that statement, though he gets it in any case.  As if James can’t bear to look at Hennessey just yet.  As if he instead wants to burn all that is John to ashes right here in the room before he allows himself the opportunity to look at Hennessey.  John swallows, his throat feels dry.  “We’ll have to tell her when she gets back.”

“Tell her tonight, she’s here.”  This, John thinks, James at least had the courtesy of saying gently.  The air leaves John’s lungs in a woosh and he’s glad he’s sitting.  He’s dizzy all of a sudden.  Dizzy and unwell.  He presses a hand to his eyes.  Rubs the bridge of his nose.   _Of course she is._ It’s how James got here so fast.  He must have already been on his way to the Inn.  Thomas would have escorted Madi and Israel back to the house, and James continued on forward to here and--

James turns around.  He walks toward John, still ignoring his fucking _father_ as if the man’s just an inconvenient knick in the carpeting.  James reaches toward John and settles a hand on his shoulder and John meets his eyes.  “Where are you right now?” he asks, and John feels himself growing roots into the wooden floor beneath him.  Feels himself gathering strength from the structure under his feet.  

“Here,” he says firmly.  “With you.”

Everything else can wait.

James’ hand falls away and he finally turns to Hennessey.  “Admiral,” he greets.  And Hennessey’s face looks tragic as he meets his son’s eyes.

John can find no joy in the circumstance at all, but he stands, and feels the sword in his hand, and feels like he’s slipping back into Long John Silver’s shoes, but he doesn’t quite know where he wants to go.

But James is here, and their minds working in tandem is familiar and lovely and he wants this.  He wants.

He wants.

 

***

 

James undoes Hennessey’s bounds, he offers the man a bowl of water to clean his face with, but doesn’t offer to help, and he stands at the door and inspects the man with a detached eye.  No one really speaks.  John leans against a wall and he watches Hennessey put himself into order.

His mind runs unbidden.  Telling him about tragedies and how they always go.  Falling from grace.  Falling from the fields where they felt themselves the victors.  Lucifer falling from heaven.  Adam being thrust from Eden.  Samson, and Hercules, and Peter of Spain, and Holofernes, and Alexander the Great for trusting those they shouldn’t.  Peter of Cyprus betrayed by the jealous.  Barnabo of Lombardy left in prison to die.  Tragedies upon tragedies upon tragedies.  They mount amongst the annals of history itself and they continue to write down words of woe.

In the stories that will be written about Captain Flint’s war, John imagines someone writing about the plight of Thomas Hamilton and how he’d been sent to prison for being mad.  The great betrayal of Long John Silver that ended Flint’s heroic rampage across the West Indies, the endless deaths that led them all to that point.

Heroes aren’t heroic unless they’ve died brutally and in a position of great tragedy and loss.  It is their pain and suffering that makes them champions in the eyes of the people.  Their horrors that make them seem good.  But each of these heroes, and every hero that John has ever heard of, had never died a peaceful death in their sleep.

They’d gone out and died in great and epic proportions, betrayed in bed by their lovers or stabbed in the dark by their enemies.  Poisoned by those who could not defeat them in battle and overthrown by their conspirators because that is the only way true heroes go.

Heroes don’t get happy endings.

John knows that better than most.  

But it doesn’t stop them from wanting it.  From fighting and clawing for it.  James McGraw had fought a war that would make Alexander proud.  He fought for a love that would have heralded him amongst the greatest of heroes and he _deserved_ to get the prize he’d been fighting for.  

Just as Thomas deserved the ending he wanted.

Just as Madi deserved hers.

Hennessey finishes washing his face and he sets the cloth to the side, and John cannot help but wonder what any of the heroes of the past would have done if they’d been confronted with such a sight.  The man who both started them on their journey as well as ensured they had a journey to start, sitting before them in the perfect position to be killed and done away with.

What do heroes do?

Real heroes would spring the trap.  They’d die their heroic death.  They’d complete the tragedy.  The cycle would be set forth into the annals of the world, because that’s how heroes die.  They die like this.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” Admiral Hennessey tells James McGraw, fifteen years after he cast James from London.  

“I’m surprised you’re still sailing,” James replies.  

John’s feels the dark whisper in the back of his mind, the welcome and the warning that opens the door to the violence that lays buried within.  He feels the bloodlust that drove him through the murder of Dufresne, he feels the grim darkness of anger and monstrosity that feels like a lover’s embrace.

Long John Silver whispers _just once more,_ and James moves his arm to the right and it brushes against John’s hand.   _Peace.  Settle.  It’s all right._

They don’t need to speak to each other.  They never really did.  The words are beautiful and the conversations poetic, but they never needed them to talk.  John knows James’ mind.  Knows the violence and despair and the horrors that lie within.  Like the sins of the past and the sins of the present are tying them both together in an unbreakable chain.  

_Know thyself._

John knows James like he knows himself and James.  He just moves his arm and it feels like benediction.  It feels like peace.  It feels _right._  

“Now that you know we’re here...what are your intentions?” James asks.  

Once, John described himself to James as someone who released his past.  Who determined not to be defined by the endless cycle of tragedies that kept happening time and time again.  Who desperately clung to the idea that one day the past would not be what he turned to when seeking answers of the future.

Once, John asked James if that would be enough, and James hadn’t so much as answered as just moved along.  As though it could be answer enough, but it never would be.  Never will be.

Until now.

Until this moment.  James looks at the man who called him a Monster, the man who set him on his path when Alfred Hamilton brought the past to the present, the man who is the last living reminder of what happened fifteen years ago.  He looks at Admiral Hennessey, and he doesn’t judge based on the past.

He judges based on the present.

He will not be defined.

And whether he knows it or not, John feels Long John Silver screeching in agony as a bright burning light of clarity settles through his body.  Wiping away the last vestiges of a pirate king John no longer wished to be.  

Heroes die tragic deaths because their hubris drives them forward.  Pushes them into the arms of those that would betray them.  They let their past define them.

But John Silver the innkeeper, James McGraw the businessman, Thomas McGraw the book binder, and Madi Scott the traveler...they’re not heroes.  They’re not the figures of their past.  They’re not defined by the horrors and the tragedies that brought them to this place.

They are unique.

They are whole.

And they are themselves.

Long John Silver dies in silence and no one knows it happens.

No one except for James McGraw, who turns and watches as John sets Hennessey’s sword to the side.  Who watches as John’s steps grow suddenly lighter, and the darkness is cast from him as if by divine light.  It doesn’t matter what Hennessey says.  

There will be no tragedy here.


	20. The Nun's Priest's Tale

“After you left London, I didn’t know what happened to you,” Hennessey tells James.  He looks at John ever so often, but ever since John sat at James side with his arms lying loosely in his lap, John knows he’s no longer considered a threat.  James is so close to John now, though.  John can feel the warmth emanating from James’ body and John is torn down the center at this time. A part of him longs desperately to sit here and give James the peace he needs, but a larger part is too pleased. 

Too excited. 

Now that the danger feels as though it’s passed, John’s relaxing into this position.  He’d let his past as Long John Silver dictate how this story should go, and that’s not at all what he has to do.  His only options did  _ not  _ include the death of this man.  He’s an innkeeper, and James is his partner, and there’s no need at all for Hennessey to say or do anything.  And  _ if  _ Hennessey  _ does  _ do something, then they’ll address it at that point.  But for now...there is no danger here. 

There is nothing here except for a remarkably awkward and ill timed family reunion.  One that is 9/10ths less interesting to John then the one he’s about to have with his  _ wife.  _  Because James had said that.  He’d said it and John’s now considering the possibilities. 

Madi’s home. 

She’s  _ home.  _

“Yes,” James agrees, reminding John that there’s a conversation finally taking place and he should be paying attention and not fantasizing about his wife.  His wife and all the good and bad things that that could mean and— “Well I felt much the same to you.  Fate has a way of giving us the things we least expect.”

Hennessey nods awkwardly, clearly not sure how to respond. 

He’s an elderly man, really.  Now that John has a chance to really  _ look  _ at him, Hennessey truly is an elderly man.  He must be, what? Sixty-nine? Seventy? Something like that? He’s got wrinkles on his cheeks and his hair is white even without a wig.  Thomas is lucky he didn’t  _ actually  _ kill the man all things considered.  It’s not exactly a good thing to strike the elderly like that. 

Silence settles between the three of them.  John leaning a little more against James’ arm and Hennessey doing his best not to look like he’s avoiding eye contact with his son.  He misses his mark, though.  He keeps glancing up.  And there’s naked want on the man’s face.  Impossible to lie and impossible to fail to detect.  Hennessey’s yearning is palpable, and the only reason that James is still standing where he is, is because of hurt.  Because of uncertainty.  

“I’ve had...many years...to consider what transpired,” Hennessey tries. 

“I know what transpired,” James interrupts.  “Alfred Hamilton approached you with irrefutable evidence that you could not deny nor fail to recognize.  And so you expelled me from the Navy rather than see me hung, and you gave me time to escape London with Miranda.  You saved my life, and in the process gave us the opportunity to start again.  I know what happened.” 

Hennessey shifts.  His discomfort palpable.  He’s got a harsh grip on his fingers in his lap, and John wonders what it must be like.  To be so confronted with your emotions like this.  He doubts that it’s particularly enjoyable. 

“I’ve often thought how this would happen.  You and I seeing each other…what you would do.”  Doubtless Thomas and John’s initial reactions had helped matter much.  “I admit...dying at your son’s own hand is not a way any man would wish to go.” 

John can’t help but wonder if it’s a manipulation on Hennessey’s part.  If the man’s truly that clever.  If he’s capable of that kind of silver-tongue mechanisms.  But John’s met his fair share of Admirals in the past, and they rarely have a talent for underhanded discussions.  They tend to border on the obstreperous and blunt rather than retaining a secret, yet silky, negotiating talent. 

Hennessey had wanted John to kill him so James wouldn’t do it.  So he wouldn’t be put in this position.  So it wouldn’t happen like this.  He was a rooster begging a wolf to kill him so he wouldn’t die at the jaws of a fox.  Plain and simple. 

“I’m not going to kill you,” James says firmly.  “Neither are John or Thomas.”

“Thomas--” Hennessey cuts himself off.  He hesitates now.  As if he’s not sure what to say.  How to say it.  “I wasn’t expecting to see him alive.”  

“It seems reports of our deaths have been greatly exaggerated,” James replies.  It’s carefully worded and slow.  Watchful and waiting.  Hennessey nods, though.  Nods and meets James’ eyes.  

“Are you happy?” 

“More than I thought I could be.” 

It seems like a satisfactory answer.  Or at the very least, it seemed like an answer that actually brought Hennessey satisfaction of some kind.  His eyes turn moist and his mouth spreads in a brittle smile that has John turning his head to the side to offer them privacy.  It’s a strange thing, being so entwined in someone’s mind, and yet never having the satisfaction of feeling what that person felt in certain moments. 

John’s never received the absolution of a man that he had been betrayed by.  He never gave absolution to the horrors that were done to him.  In the story of how he became a hero, he followed the footsteps of all the great tragics.  With pain and misery and no assistance at all.  And yet here he is now, feeling the side effects of the great love that once belonged to James McGraw, and now feeling it as it is returned. 

Hennessey apologizes.   _ Apologizes,  _ and James forgives, and they live in a world where Thomas wants to kill and James wants to forgive, and John is the knot in the center of chain being pulled in both directions and wondering where to go.  “Will you be turning us over to be arrested?” James asks, and Hennessey says he thinks they’re plain past that now. 

“What good is it going to do any of us?” he asks. 

So they release him, and invite him to dinner instead. 

 

***

 

Hennessey doesn’t ask for specifics as to who John is.  He doesn’t question James on the decisions that led him here.  He  _ does  _ ask about Miranda, and expresses true remorse that she’s gone.  But there’s not much more than that.  James asks Hennessey about London and what the Admiralty has been doing, more for conversation than anything else.  And as they talk, they walk closer to their house. 

Their warm and comfortable house that’s been set up so John and Madi can be at peace with one another, so Israel and his lady and their baby can grow.  So the last vestiges of peace that they were able to salvage from the wreck that was their attempts at heroism and virtue can find their absolution here amongst the flowers and the fields.  Bleating goats beckoning them to the door. 

The house comes to view and the front door is pulled open only moments later.  James slows to a stop and waits, watching quietly and wordlessly.  Soundless and accepting as Madi steps from the home and her eyes meet John’s.  James says nothing at all.  Makes no comment or show of affection, he stands there and he doesn’t take this from John, and John’s never been more aware of the incredible gift that James gives him every time this happens. 

They’re on the beach again, rescued from the British, and there’s Madi and her people.  Running to him without saying a word, and John runs to her in the only way he can.  Throwing his crutch forward surely and knowingly and swinging his body in after it.  They collide together, two great swells of the ocean clashing at sea and letting all their water mix into one. 

Her hands go to his face, and his right arm wraps around her body.  He pulls her in close and he feels her lips against his.   _ Mine.   _ Just as James whispered across the bedroom to John only days before.  Just as Thomas says when he looks at John and claims him as his own.   _ Mine.   _ There is no denying this pull, this desperate attachment.  

Fingers tangle in his hair and pull him closer.  He could melt into her mouth.  He could become nothing but light and gladness and he would willfully wrap himself around this woman and all that she is so that she felt nothing but joy.  Nothing but love and affection and  _ perfect.   _ So sweet and tender.  He wanted to lay with her under the shade of their home, feel her always in his embrace and in his heart.  Listen to her voice as she spoke his name.   _ John Silver.  John Silver.  _

_ My dearest John.  _

She kisses him again and again, and he’s crying now.  Crying and feeling her hands growing moist against his cheeks.  It smears tears along his skin, his nose starts to run with mucus that’s undesirable.  It mixes with the vague attempts at a mustache he’d been trying to grow, and John can’t help going back to kiss her again. 

And again. 

And again.  He loses his crutch and he shifts his balance.  Hands running along Madi’s back.  She’s kissing his cheeks.  His neck.  His shoulder.  She’s hugging him and he’s hugging her, and everything else is silence and nothingness.  All he hears is his name from her lips and her breath in his ear and he clings to his wife and tells her truthfully: “I missed you,” as she tells him the same. 

The euphoria ends with James collecting his crutch from the ground and returning it under his arm.  It ends with Israel coming to greet them, and John shaking the man’s hand for a brief moment before drawing him in.  A king embracing his subject in a show of love and loyalty and unending gratitude.  “Thank you,” he tells Israel.  “Thank you for caring for her.” 

“D’ya think I wouldn’t?” Israel huffs, though his eyes cut back toward Hennessey with the leering kind of murder that John has come to expect from the man.  It makes him smile.  Glad that even as compromised as John is at this moment, he knows that Israel will protect Madi.  Will protect this family unit and all that live here. 

John still hasn’t completely pulled away from Madi.  He can’t just yet.  Can’t release her or stand apart from her.  He needs to see her and talk to her and tell her that he forgives her for leaving and that he understands.  He needs to apologize for ripping her letters and to admit that Thomas saved them and wrote them all out again so he could read them.  He needs to tell her that he understands he hadn’t been left behind.  Hadn’t been abandoned.  He’d needed to part from her as much as she needed to part from them. 

But even as he twists on one foot, looking over Israel and Madi, then back to Hennessey and James, he’s ever aware of the presence of even  _ more  _ people.  He turns back to the house.  Thomas is there, holding a baby that John hadn’t expected to see, next to a freckled faced brown haired girl with bright blue eyes.  

“It’s  _ here, _ ” John blurts out indelicately, and Madi laughs.  

“She was born last week,” his wife explains.  She’s tucking herself in alongside John’s body, and he feels himself shifting his weight to lean on her as she leans on him.  This is comfortable.  Familiar.  It feels exactly as it should feel.   _ Home.  _  “We would have sent a message, but we were so close already we saw no point.”

“We’d have ridden out to collect you,” John tells her immediately.  The girl looks pale and tired and sore.  A blanket is wrapped around her shoulders and her hair is unkempt.  It’s little wonder that James had managed to convince Thomas to remain at the house with them all. 

All Thomas would have needed was to look at the baby and her mother and he’d have changed his mind on everything.  Would have dedicated himself to finding the best and safest option for them.  Anything to ensure that no harm would come to this fledgling family.  Reason cutting through the hatred that nearly drove him to murder. 

Even like this, the girl seems ready to run if she has to.  Her shoes are firmly in place and the vibrant fire that must have attracted Israel to her in the first place is there.  She’s a small and fragile looking thing, stomach still swollen from the baby she’d just brought into this world, but she’s standing there waiting for any sign that it’s not safe. 

She’s letting Thomas hold her daughter on the off chance that the Navy will arrive at any moment and they’ll all need to flee.  Because here and now, John knows that Israel would never allow anyone to arrest John or put him on trial.  Not even for a murder he willfully committed. 

What a mess they all almost made. 

“We were with a Cherokee clan that we knew.  They helped deliver the child, and our guide arranged us a carriage to bring us the rest of the way,” Madi informs John casually.  “James paid the man when it arrived.”  Now, despite the friendly nature of their greeting, she tilts her head toward Hennessey.  “And this must be his father?” 

He pulls his eyes away from the Quaker lass and her babe.  Following Madi’s line of sight so he can nod.  “C’mon,” James urges.  “Let’s get off the road.” 

They meander closer to the door, and James smiles at Thomas.   _ It’s okay.  It’s going to be okay.   _

It’s not returned. 

Thomas’ jaw is set in a tightly clenched grimace, but he rocks the infant against his chest even as he glares over her shoulder at Hennessey.  Not nearly as forgiving as James or John.  He cups the back of the small child’s head with a practiced hand.  His body as loose and gentle as ever even though his expression remains fierce.  John has no idea how he does it. 

James climbs the steps to stand in front of him.  One hand on Thomas’ shoulder and the other gently touching the baby in his arms.  He ducks his head to force Thomas to make eye contact with him and whispers something that John doesn’t care to hear.  He’s focused instead on Hennessey.  On how Hennessey is reacting to such shows of intimacy. 

The Admiral is watching.  Expression open and frank.  He’s...curious.  Uncertain.  Unknowing.  He’s not sure how to feel or what to say and it’s so very obvious now that this process has left him with few prejudices to speak freely about.  “Something you want to  _ say,  _ Navy?” Israel growls out, and it’s surprising enough that everyone stares at the man openly. 

Hennessey sputters.  “What?  I...no...I…” He _doesn’t_ know what to say.  But perhaps his awkwardness is exactly what’s needed.  Because Thomas sets his jaw in open defiance and he walks back into the house without arguing that Hennessey needs to leave or be murdered.  They follow inside, and John doesn’t think he’d ever have anticipated that  _ this  _ is what would bring Thomas and Israel together. 

Thomas holds onto the sleeping infant, and settles the mother in a seat--urging her to relax--and when he finally stops moving, Israel is there.  Standing at his side, one hand on the handle of his cutlass ready to cut Hennessey into pieces for even daring to offer a word of hatred toward any of them. 

Madi sits next to John and Hennessey is offered a chair at their table.  James sets to making tea.  It’s domestic and it’s strange.  “I don’t know what to say,” Hennessey reiterates. 

So John starts.  

He looks to the short girl that provided the second greatest disruption the day’s seen, and he smiles a smile that he knows is charming.  “We haven’t been properly introduced,” he greets.  “My name is John Silver, and you are?” 

_ Uncomfortable,  _ her expression reads, but she takes John’s hand and shakes it anyway.  “Constance,” she says in unique accent that John cannot quite place.  It’s British, he’s certain, but he doesn’t know from  _ where  _ exactly.  

“Constance, it’s lovely to meet you.”  Thomas hasn’t stopped glaring at Hennessey and Hennessey keeps shifting about like he’s going to spontaneously combust any second now.  “And what’s the name of this little doll?” 

“Margaret.”  

_ Margaret,  _ John repeats to himself as he inspects the infants’ bald head.  It means  _ pearl.  _  And frankly, John cannot think of a more ironic name for Israel Hands’ daughter to be called.  He nods and tells her that it’s a precious name, and smiles as he’s supposed to smile.  

If every second he delays this makes Hennessey more uncomfortable then he’s perfectly happy to let it keep on keeping on.  “How did you and Israel meet?” he asks, as if he hadn’t been fully prepared to commit cold blooded murder not two hours ago. 

“He worked for my father on his farm,” Constance explains.  The more she talks the more confidence she seems to get, though she’s obviously not pleased to be sitting here surrounded by them all like this.  John has no intentions of torturing the poor girl, but right now she’s probably the only reason Thomas is remaining civil.  “We became close.” Her cheeks flush and the freckles that dot her face bleed into the shades of red turning them into massive smudges that cross from one ear to the next.  

There aren’t any spots on Margaret that John could see, but chances were she’d grow them over time.  Her parents weren’t exactly prime examples of clean skin.  “Constance’s quite the excellent cook, John,” Madi informs him.  

“Well then, when you’re recovered perhaps you’d like to lend a hand at the inn?” he offers without a second provocation.  The relief on Constance’s face is palpable and she nods her head.  Thanking him as though he’d given her her heart’s desire.  

Margaret whines against Thomas’ shoulder.  Little baby fusses that have Constance standing.  Reaching to take her back.  He delivers her into her mother’s arms with obvious disappointment at having to let her go.  But it’s time.  John kisses his wife’s cheek.  Tilts his head to whisper in her ear.  “Take Constance and Maggie to the barn.  Be prepared to leave if you need to.”  He pulls back to meet her eyes.  Memorizing this moment in case it is their last. 

She nods. 

She kisses his lips, then stands to help Constance outside.  They walk slowly.  Sedately.  Carefully.  All the while, silence looms in the house.  Israel towering at Thomas’ side like the leering henchman ready for battle.  

“I don’t want you here,” Thomas says eventually.  

Hennessey a rigid statue sitting at the ready for flagellation before Thomas’ eyes.  “Lord Hamilton--”

“--Thomas.  Or have you forgotten already?” 

James sighs.  “Thomas…”

“No, James.”  Thomas stands.  “I don’t care.  You don’t have to want him dead, that’s you right.  But I don’t have to forgive, nor like him.  That is mine.” 

“I mean you and your family no ill will...Thomas.” 

“If only you meant that fifteen years ago.”  It’s an argument that Hennessey is never going to win.  Not here, not now, not after all this time.  John knows that as well as James, and Thomas is doing his best to keep his forked tongue behind his teeth.  He’s furious and he’s incapable of expressing himself in any meaningful way at the moment. 

Hennessey looks to James.  Looks to James and it’s like he’s trying to see where he should go.  What he should say.  John wonders if Hennessey ever considered that James might forgive him.  Might accept what happened.  Might not be fueled by the fires of rage that steers his mind so easily towards violence. 

To be perfectly honest, John  _ still _ wouldn’t be surprised if James turned on his heel and shoved Hennessey’s head through a rusty nail.  And yet that doesn’t feel like where they’re going.  It doesn’t feel like James even wants it to go that way.  He seems tired and done and no longer interested in fighting.  He’s fought his wars, and his wars led him here.  

Thomas  _ hasn’t  _ fought the wars, he’s only suffered through them.  His rage had been set aside time and again for “I heard you say you had no family.   _ Never blessed in that regard. _ ”  It’s not Thomas’ intention to hurt James.  He doesn’t  _ want  _ to hurt James. 

But he also doesn’t want to see _Hennessey_ hurt James, now or in the future.  Doesn’t want Hennessey to say something or do something to send James into another spiral of self doubt and loathing.  James cast his judgment.  He forgave the man.  But it doesn’t stop the fact that Hennessey  _ had  _ done damage. 

_ It must be awful being you.  _

James’ face pinches at Thomas’ words, and it’s obvious that it’s something he’ll be thinking about later.  But the desire for this fight to be over is still there.  Still sitting between them.  Still existing on the planes of this conversation.  “One doesn’t share one’s life story with an innkeeper,” Hennessey tells Thomas firmly.  “Particularly when it brings you pain to consider it.” 

“Pain of your own making.” 

“I did not wish to see James  _ hanged.   _ I did what I could to--”

“You’re a coward.” 

“Thomas.” James’ voice is soft.  Weary.  He shakes his head to the left.   _ Enough.   _ And Thomas’ fingers curl into tight fists.  His nostrils flair.  He’s trembling where he sits.  Too angry and too frustrated to let it go.  To let this whole matter be set to rest. 

They’ll go in circles with this.  Time and time again.  And Thomas will still hate Hennessey for what he’s done, just as he hates Israel for how Israel has treated John.  And yet, at some point the levy will break because look at them now.  Thomas holding Israel’s baby not five minutes ago, ready to defend them with his life if asked, and Israel towering at Thomas’ side.  “What’s the Navy doing here in the first place?” John asks.  They need this conflict to end. 

“We have an interest in keeping things...manageable near the Spanish Main.”  They want to keep an English presence at sea to keep the Spanish from getting any more ideas.  Tensions have not cooled in the  _ least  _ over the past few years, and John rolls his eyes at the response.  He may no longer be a pirate, but he knows full well how these things are managed. 

“And what are your intentions now?” Israel presses.  His gravelly voice fills the corners of the room.  John cannot help but treasure the sound.  He’s  _ missed  _ his friend.  Missed hearing his acerbic tone and his guiding hand.  His carefully worded advice and his quiet threats.  

Israel had been John’s most loyal companion throughout the years, and John’s unbearably grateful that they’ve finally come to this point.  Finally able to reunite and rest.   _ Please just let them rest.   _ John doesn’t want this fight any longer.  James doesn’t want this fight. 

Thomas may think he wants this fight, but John’s relatively certain that once he takes a step back and actually looks at the situation...Thomas just wants things to go back to where they were.  No fight in sight.  No fear or warning. 

“I don’t  _ have  _ any intentions.  I didn’t even know James would be here I just…” Hennessey rubs at his eyes.  Sighing heavily and clearly dismayed.  He can’t put into words how he feels and John understands.  He does.  But he also knows that until this matter is resolved he can’t see his wife and so he’d very much like it if Hennessey figured it out.  “I came to do my duty and everything that’s happened since then...I’ve only dreamed of.” 

_ Dreams.  _

Dreams of James killing him like he killed Alfred.  Dreams of pain and devastation and dying at his son’s hand.  Those were the dreams that Hennessey quoted not long ago, and John wonders if Thomas would be glad to hear that Hennessey had lived in fear of this day.  “Why haven’t you been to the Americas or the Caribbean before?” Thomas asks sharply.  It’s a question that strangely enticing.  There’s something...something that’s used to nag at John during the war.  Something that only now is starting to shape itself into a full and proper form. 

“Woodes Rogers…” John murmurs.  Hennessey’s face went pale.  His lips pressed into a thin line, and James twisted where he stood.  Letting John have the floor but mind already leaping to the same conclusion.  “He knew about Thomas.  About Thomas, James, and Miranda.  He knew Thomas’ plan, he had the support of the Navy, but more than that--he was the only person who knew that James McGraw was James Flint.” 

“If you’re asking if I spoke to Mr. Rogers...I did.” 

“Spoke to him?” Thomas presses.  He’s not following it like James and John.  Like Israel.  He wasn’t there.  He hadn’t put the pieces together nor seen how it all fell into place.  The pardons opening the doors to civilization, the plan working exactly as Thomas had hoped it would.  Giving the Navy and England exactly what they wanted.  It all would have continued to work, if James hadn’t insisted on fighting back.  If he hadn’t corralled Charles Vane back into the fold.  If he hadn’t gotten Teach to declare war.  

It would have worked. 

Hennessey needs to clear his throat before he speaks.  He trails an awkward finger over the fresh wound on his head, but then lifts his eyes to meet Thomas’.  “After James and Lady Hamilton left London, your father made it entirely clear that any attempt to contact them would reflect badly on the Navy and its leadership.  Yet when the reports of Captain Flint began to arise, I knew immediately who it could be.  Knew...that only one sailor that had a strong grudge against England while still harboring an affinity towards New Providence Island could have managed the ascension of Captain Flint.”

“And you knew the name,” James concludes quietly.  

The story of the mysterious Captain Flint of old.  Who slipped aboard James’ grandfather’s ship and spun a tale before disappearing back into the sea.  Hennessey nods.  “Then, I was informed of Peter Ashe’s acquisition of a governorship, Lord Hamilton’s death,  _ your  _ death,” Hennessey motions toward Thomas meaningfully.  “And it seemed for some time that no one remembered the part that I had in the disaster that set everyone on their paths.” 

Outisde, the goat bleats angrily and kicks a fence post.  John glances back.  He can see Madi loitering by the barn.  Her beautiful eyes filled with concern.  He wonders if Constance and Margaret have settled all right.  He hopes they’ve had a chance to relax.  

“I met Woodes Rogers just after he wrote his book.  There was some excitement in the air in London and all the sea lords were expected to have an opinion on the text.  When I spoke to him, he reminded me of you.”  Hennessey directs this part to James, but returns his attention to Thomas soon enough.  “We spoke about the pirates, about what could be done with them, and about the many ways Nassau had fallen to disrepair.  I told him your plan.  He asked what happened, and why he never heard of it.  So I told him the rest. 

“When he expressed an interest in trying, and achieved the appropriate funding...the last thing James asked of me was to help with these pardons.  It was his final request, made _moments_ before I betrayed him.  I...I had no choice then.  But.  His argument was sound..."  He met his son's eyes.  "It  _was_ sound, James."  John wonders if James ever thought he'd hear those words.  He doesn't think he's ever seen James pull away from someone.  Not like this.  Not like this... "I encouraged the sea lords to give their support.  Thomas was right,” Hennessey whispers.  “It did work.” 

Thomas is frozen where he sits.  James has closed his eyes.  Covered his face with his left hand.  John feels like his heart is going to beat through his chest.  It worked.  Woodes Rogers had taken Thomas’ plan because Hennessey had pushed it on him.  Had been wracked with guilt from his place in the whole affair, and had tried to make amends ten years later by giving James what he thought he wanted. 

“I didn’t go to Nassau with Rogers because I thought that there was a very good possibility that you would have seen me...and rejected any pardon I had to offer.  Really, I should have expected you to to reject it no matter what.” 

“Timing,” James murmurs, sliding his hand from his face and cutting his father a look.  “If you’d been half a year sooner, we’d have taken those pardons and I would have led the people against any such resistance.  But Peter Ashe had just murdered Miranda Hamilton when we came to discuss those same pardons that  _ you  _ were already trying to achieve.” 

Shock and dismay play clearly across Hennessey’s face.  His mouth moves wordlessly, true pain and devastation clear.  “I’m so sorry,” he says, and he means it truthfully. 

Thomas stands.  Chair skittering back behind him.  “Stay for dinner,” he mutters under his breath.  “If you want.”  He doesn’t apologize for striking the man, but John can see he wants to.  Not that it matters.  Thomas leaves the house and heads toward the barn and John stands to go after him.  James nods, giving him leave to go without worrying about how to manage Hennessey, and Israel elects to stay behind.  On the off chance that something truly  _ does  _ need to be done with the man. 

If James is displeased at having Israel as his companion, he doesn’t do anything to stop it as John leaves them be.  The door to the house bangs closed behind him as he struggles to catch up with Thomas, and he even calls out to the man to make him slow down.  

Madi hasn’t left her position by the barn, but Thomas is halfway to her and it’s clear he’s put her on alert.  Stopping to stand on the brown grass, Thomas’ neck is bent.  His chin almost touches his chest and he looks like he’s trying his hardest not to cry.  Not to react in any way.  To just stand there and let it all go. 

“It doesn’t make it right,” Thomas growls out. 

“No,” John agrees.  Because nothing could make it right.  The past was the past, and it did it’s best to kill them all.  And Miranda wasn’t here to be with Thomas and James now.  She wasn’t here to see how their plan would have worked.  How everything could have fallen into place.  

She wasn’t here to live the rest of her life in the peace and comfort that they all were building for each other, and there is nothing Hennessey could have done to stopped that.  There is nothing that Hennessey could have said fifteen years ago to keep Alfred Hamilton from tearing their worlds apart.  Nothing he could have done to keep things from unfolding as they did. 

Maybe if he’d moved faster the pardons could have been offered and James and Miranda could have found peace together in Nassau.  But maybe Thomas would never have been found and he’d have spent the rest of his life on that plantation with only Peter Ashe to visit him.  

“Thomas,” John takes hold of his friend’s arm.  He looks anxiously towards Madi, and he doesn’t know how to do this.  Doesn’t know how to make things right.  He’s never been good at comforting other people when all they felt was pain.  Devastation.  There is no bringing back the dead.  

Madi had to throw herself into his arms for him to realize she wanted a hug after her father passed.  He’d never even considered embracing James after Miranda.  He’s not  _ good  _ at this.  James is better.  He does body contact and friendly gestures and words of kindness.  But John’s never been the first choice when someone is seeking help. 

Not like this.

_ I don’t know how else to tell you this...except no.  I suppose there’s always fuck no.  Or fuck you. _

He doesn’t have a wealth of experience to fall back on here.  Because there’d never  _ been  _ someone else.  There’d never been someone to hold him tight and offer him words of love and comfort and kindness.  Not until recently.  Not until now.  

“I’m sorry,” he says instead.  

Because there’s nothing that can be done. 

Nothing that can fix the past.  They dreamed about Nassau and they dreamed about pardons and then those dreams were destroyed by violence in the night, knives in the dark, betrayal of the worst kind.  They dreamed and dreamed and they fought as hard as they could.  They’re fowl in the jaws of a beast, and by the grace of God they managed to wriggle free, and find safety, and they cannot go back.  

Thomas knows it too.  But he hates that he knows it, and hates that he has to say yes.  He reaches for John and he kisses him.  Pulls him to his chest, and John freezes where he stands, eyes cutting back toward Madi as fear and uncertainty slides through him in an instant.  But Madi only approaches. 

She walks toward them.  She takes Thomas’ hand.  “Come sit with us,” she beseeches, and they go.  

The time for anger is past. 


	21. The Manicple's Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do discuss the Cherokee and some of their family unit structure in this chapter. If there seems to be something inaccurate please let me know. Further, they are referred to as "Indians" as in that time period they would have been called this. Period typical terminology persists. It is not used or meant to be used offensively.
> 
> As for the thee/thou - here's some fun Quaker history: Quakers were militant about using thee/thou. To them it was the most important thing to do because everyone was on the same level. They were often beaten or occasionally executed for being so impolite since 'you' is more formal.

From the moment that Madi left John behind, she had known that she would miss him more than anyone else in this world.  Each step she took away from him felt like it was pulling a string taught.  That she was stretching that string as far as it would go, until it frayed and went thin in a desperate attempt to still stay together.

“He couldn’t have come,” Madi tells Israel only hours after they departed.  He isn’t impressed by her opinion and doesn’t bother to tell her otherwise.  Just keeps his mouth quiet and grunting a touch so she knows he’s _willfully_ chosen to ignore her.  

She’d made a choice.  A choice to leave John and the life they were trying to build, because she couldn’t accept what Thomas and James had done.  Using John’s money to purchase slaves, even if they set them free...it felt wrong.  Wrong and inappropriate in all the ways that hurt the most.  She couldn’t stay.  Not until she understood.

Not until she knew.

They travelled far on foot.  Taking main roads and inspecting the countryside.  Georgia was unlike the Bahamas in many ways.  The ground felt different beneath their feet.  The smell in the air was never as salty sweet.  It still carried a faint odor of damp, but it was different.  Sour and lacking the general spice that Madi had long since grown used to.

Men and women passed them on the road, and they never once looked at Madi.  When they bothered to take note of Israel, they barely seemed aware that Madi existed.  She was invisible.  She was an empty space.  Someone that no one considered and no one cared about.  

Even standing as tall and as proud as she always did, not a single person took note.  Madi cannot help wondering how it was possible that a group of people could care so much about keeping their slaves on their properties, but not care at all when someone of her skin color happened to exist.

It was as if they somehow took her for granted.   _Them,_ for granted. Israel finds them lodging for the night in a tavern by the road.  They don’t even ask her name.  

“I was born in Nassau, but I grew up on our Island,” Madi told Israel as she stood at a window.  The night was dark and she couldn’t see the road, but she didn’t need to see anything.  What she saw in her mind’s eye wasn’t the road or the exterior of the inn.  Nor anything in Georgia at all.  “My people raised me in their way.  My mother taught me to be proud.”

“You were a Queen,” Israel snorted.  

“I was a Queen.”  She heard the echo of voices.  The screams of the past.  The cries for the future.  She felt the chanting and the fury and the rage.  She felt the burning beneath her skin.  “When the war started, and we went to Nassau, there never seemed to be a moment when someone didn’t know who I was.  What I was.  The strangers I would meet would treat me with respect.  Kindness.”

For all the talents Israel had, his knack for telling the truth remained eternal.  “The two men with swords you had with you probably ensured that, _my lady.”_  This was true.  And so was the fact that those in her company generally knew who she was and what her role was.  She could not deny such things.

This was different.

No one knows her here.  She was no different from the women working in the households or fields of the land owners.  White slavers who consider her to be a part of the scenery, and not a person in her own right.  

_Why?_

_Why were they like this?_

In the morning they left.  No one spoke to her.  No one looked at her.  She missed John fiercely.  His presence at her side had been a balm to hide the pain of leaving her home, and she’d depended on it.  She’d treasured it.  And so very easily she had set it aside.  Telling him words she knew would hurt.  Requesting he stay behind where she considered him safe, so she could discover for herself if this was a world worth her trying to live in.

She penned her first letter at her earliest opportunity.  Scratching out page after page when she realized that nothing came close to immortalizing the feelings in her heart. She wished she could sit at John’s side and discuss.  She wished she could hold his hand.  Feel his arm around her shoulders.  

When they lay together at night, he would draw patterns on her skin.  Idly tracing paths only he knew the reasons for.  She wanted him with her.  

And she wondered if he wanted her too.

***

The Indians were different than Madi had imagined.  They lived in communities that were much like her Island.  She watched the mothers and their children.  The fathers and their friends.  The family units that are whole and strong.  They hunt and grew food and shared in the words of their foremothers.

They told stories in words that Madi didn’t understand.  Their guide, a young man named Tsatsi, translates for them.  She told Tsatsi about her people and their work.  Tsatsi introduced her to Awiyagadoga, and Madi learned about the Cherokee people.

“Our women define our families.  It is by our women that we are made.”  Mothers were the voices of their clans.  They were the ones who took charge of their children.  They were the ones who controlled the household.  They voted, they fought.  They built lodges that housed multiple generations.  

“My mother raised me,” Madi explained. Awiyagadoga nodded.  As if it were expected.  “I was to be the leader of my people.”

She told them about the war, and they listened with great interest.  “White men do not understand our people,” Tsatsi surmised when she explained the Island and their plight.  “They think that things must be their way.  But that is not how it must be.”  Tsatsi’s mother was a member of the Deer Clan, and his father was a runaway slave.  When he was born, the white men came and tried to take him away, but the Clan would not allow it.  His father was killed, but Tsatsi was allowed to remain with his mother.  “These are my people,” he told Madi firmly.  “But you are also my people.”

“If you’re not careful,” Israel warned, “You’ll end up married to him too.”  

The comment made Tsatsi smile and he nodded his head in agreement, “You would be a good member of our tribe.”  He was young and earnest and Madi was charmed by his demeanor.  

“I am already married,” she told him.  She doesn’t regret it.  Not for a moment.

“Is he a good man?” Awiyagadoga asked, leaning in close.  

Madi told them, then, about the Spanish.  About being captured and held prisoner.  About the pardon and the words she shared with Woodes Rogers.  She told them about John and how he saved her life, and they listened with rapt attention.  Tsatsi translating everything quickly, yet methodically, clinging to every word.  

When she finished there was a fierce deliberation amongst the men and women of Tsatsi’s clan.  Tsatsi didn’t translate as he was arguing as well.  They went back and forth for several minutes before Awiyagadoga gave her final judgment.  “It was good of your husband to save your life, and the pardons ensured your people’s safety from the white men too.”

“What of the others?” she asked quietly.

Awiyagadoga reached across the space between them.  Her hands wrapped around Madi’s.  She spoke words Madi didn’t know, and Tsatsi whispered them into her ear.  “There will always be others.”

 

***

 

They traveled North out of Georgia.  Through the Carolinas and Virginia and north still until they’re in Pennsylvania.  Madi had wanted to see what it was like here.  Here, where the last bit of the war had been finalized.  Jack Rackham and his deal with the Guthries serving as the final nail in the coffin that had been her mission.

She had not been expecting the Quakers.  Israel found work on Mr. Keith’s farm, and his lovely daughter Constance made Madi’s acquaintance.  “Tell me all about the Island,” Constance begged.  She shuffled close to Madi, plain dress bunching up on her hips as she leaned forward.  She had a smatter of freckles on her cheeks, her brown hair tucked behind her bonnet.  

Constance was a well read woman.  She delighted in pulling texts from the shelves and explaining where she got them and what she studied from the words within.  In the evenings when Israel had finished working and was instead sitting not far from Madi in the parlor, Constance would tell Madi about the great abolitionists of Pennsylvania.  

She’d pull works from William Southeby, John Hepburn, Ralph Sandiford, and Benjamin Lay from her shelves and smile giddily as she spoke of them.  

“Thou've not heard of Mr. Lay?” she’d ask.  “He’s _wonderful,_ truly.  He is not afraid of anyone, and he’s so very principled.”  One would almost think the girl was in love from her passionate description.  “Just at this last Yearly Meeting, he came into the Meeting House dressed as a soldier, gave a speech about the horrors of slavery and then _stabbed a bible._  Blood flew from the pages in a display I’ve never seen before or since.”

While usually Israel didn’t pay much attention to these proceedings, the thought of blood spurting from a bible has him sitting upright with brows raised high.  For her part, Madi wasn’t sure what she was meant to say to that.  She nodded awkwardly, trying to imagine the scene, and Constnace hurried on.  “Of course it wasn’t _real_ blood,” Israel actually slumps back in his seat at that.  The _fiend._ “Mr. Weebly said that it was _really_ pokeberry juice, he got some on his face --sitting as close to the bible as he was.  But just last year Mr. Lay kidnapped a boy to show them how it felt to lose a child as well.  And _once_ he stood out in the snow with no socks or shoes or coats due to the conditions of slaves in the town.”

To be perfectly fair, Madi’s not certain if she should applaud the man or be appalled by his actions.  “We’re the non-violent sort, of course," Constance hurries to explain, "as part of our faith.”

“How’s that workin’ out for you exactly?” Israel muttered, even as Madi wondered how someone can kidnap a child non-violently, but Constance takes no time whatsoever to turn on him.

“We’ve got a whole colony now which is more than I can say for thee, hm?” Israel stared at her, and Constance stared back.  

“Tell me more?” Madi encouraged, eager to break the tension.

It’s a tension that never truly broke, in all the rest of the time they spent on Mr. Keith’s farm.

 

***

 

Israel doesn’t read and write well, and Constance took to teaching him.  He knew some letters and he could scrawl his name, but it’s sloppy and slow, like he’s only learned the form and cannot truly understand how to move forward.  He memorized words more than truly reading them, and Constance found him out soon enough.

While Madi studies the work of the Quakers of Philadelphia, Constance repeats the alphabet and sounds words out.  One at a time.  Sentence by sentence.  There was a book tucked in amongst all the rest on the shelves of the Keiths’ home, and Madi traced her fingers over the spine.

_The Canterbury Tales._

“Are thou familiar with it?” Constance asked as she takes note of the book.  Madi had pulled it from its place and taken to stroking the sides.  Trailing her fingertips over the embossed cover.  

“It is my husband’s favorite,” she revealed.  Israel made an awful sound under his breath.  He cursed.  Started muttering about how the whole world seemed to be littered with copies of this God Awful Book, and Constance chastised him immediately for his poor manners and bad demeanor.

Israel stared at her as if he couldn’t quite work out whether he should be offended, affronted, or charmed that she’d even dared, and Constance seemed to put her from her mind.  She stood at Madi’s side, and they flipped to a page at random.  

 

 

 

 

> Let's take a cat and raise him well with milk              
>  And tender meat, and make his couch of silk,  
>  Then let him see a mouse go by the wall--  
>  At once he'll leave the milk and meat and all,  
>  And every dainty that is in the house,  
>  Such appetite he has to eat a mouse.                         
>  Here you may see his lust has domination,  
>  And appetite will rout discrimination.

 

“Do you believe this?” Madi asked Constance then.  “That no matter what someone does, they will always return to their base nature.  Regardless of circumstance or outcome?”

“I’m not sure I do,” Constance replied.  “There are circumstances where someone will choose differently every time.  Circumstances that would make even the most ardent slaveowner become an abolitionist if pressed correctly.”

“And you’ll get there with your demonstrations?”  Israel scoffed.

“I don’t know.  But it’s better than nothing at all.”

“Would you buy a slave?” Madi asked.  “To set them free?” They’ve travelled hundreds of miles, crossed paths with thousands of slaves and scores of slave owners.  They’ve arrived here in this Quaker town where its abolitionists take their work more seriously than any other Madi’s observed.

Constance took her time in answering.  She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth and she clearly was troubled by the thought she didn’t have a direct response.  But eventually she asked, “What’s the alternative?” and it was Madi’s turn to be left contemplating.

She doesn’t remember...

She doesn’t remember if James or Thomas said what would have befallen the slaves they purchased.  Would they have gone on with the Delaney household?  Would someone else have purchased them?  What would their lives have been like if they hadn’t been purchased?  Madi doesn’t know.  She could only imagine.  Only draw up the horrors of whippings and beatings and loss of limbs.  The pain of separating a mother and their child.  The loss of a father and his kin.  

James and Thomas had  purchased whole families.  Kept them together and freed them together.  They lost money and profit and possibility.  They lost favor and standing in the community and they earned the ire of the Roland brothers.  

_What was the alternative?_

Madi sat down and penned a letter to John.  

She felt more guilty than ever before.  Missed James and Thomas and wanted to see them.  Talk to them.  

But at the end of all things, more than anything else, Madi was to ashamed to go home.

 

***

 

Seeing Israel and Constance spending time together was strange.  For so much of her time as a recipient of Israel’s protection, Madi had never seen him show an interest in anyone else.  But he seemed to not know what to do or say in regards to Constance, and she had a firm temperament that was both challenging and intriguing.  She accepted Israel, despite hearing stories of the work he did or the crimes he committed.  “Everyone is a child of God,” she’d say.  “Thou has an Inner Light too.”  Israel told her he had no such thing, and she didn’t take offense.  Didn’t try to argue.  Just informed him he wasn’t listening hard enough.

If she was being entirely honest with herself, Madi knows that staying on the Keiths’ farm for as long as they have been was a form of escapism.  She didn’t want to go back to Georgia and face her husband.  To explain that she’d run away rather than accept what was before her.  She didn’t want to go back and try to make things right when she didn’t have an answer on how they could move forward.

How they could live in Georgia and be surrounded by things that Madi couldn’t abide by, and find acceptance there anyway.  Madi didn’t like not having answers, and answers were what she needed now more than ever.  

And the longer she waited, the more complicated things became.

“You write to Flint and that fucker too?” Israel asked her one evening after he came back to find her scratching away at a piece of paper.  He’d never asked her such things before, but he’d also never leaned over her shoulder and truly _looked_ at what she was writing.  He saw John’s name at the top.  He read the first few lines of the letter.

They always started the same.  She missed him.  She loved him.  She wished they were together.  Sometimes Madi wondered who she was trying to make feel better.   _Her_ or _him._   When John read these letters, did it break his heart?  Did it hurt him worse to know that she’d abandoned him on that farm.

 _He never could have made the journey,_ she reminded herself over and over.  But wasn’t that the point?  Tsatsi had said that John was part of her family.  Her clan.  And she had abandoned him because he’d been incapable of keeping up, when he had come for her regardless of the damage it caused.  

“No,” Madi admitted to Israel.  “I don’t.”

She was still angry at Thomas and James for what they’d done.  She was still upset that they had been the cause of this mess.  If they hadn’t done what they’d done, then she and John would still have been together.  They could have all been together.  They could have continued living their lives in ignorance.  Even if she could accept that she'd made an error in leaving as rashly as she did, even if she could accept what they had done in general...she was still angry. 

And no matter how much she missed discussing books with Thomas, or telling stories with James, she couldn't leave now.  Even if at night she thought she could hear James' laugh, feel the touch of Thomas's lips kissing her head as he bid her good evening, feel the warmth of their embrace. 

Israel moved about the room.  He pulled off his coat and he adjusted his shirt.  He wasn’t allowed to keep his weapons in the house, but that didn’t stop him from doing so anyway.  He still had his sword and his guns and he lined them up next to him with careful and practiced movements.  “You know what John’s like when he’s hurt,” Israel said, then.  It was something that Madi hadn’t wanted to consider either.  “When he’s upset.”

John shoves the world away when he’s hurt.  He tries to run and hide.  He doesn’t want to see or speak to anyone.  He lies and lies and lies.  And then, eventually, he succumbs to a desperate need for help.  He throws a hand out from the void and he tries valiantly to hold onto whatever it is he can grab.  If it’s Madi, he lets her hold him while he shudders against her chest.  If it’s Israel, he lets him strike the sense back into him and guide him forcefully to the surface.  If it’s James…

If it’s Thomas…

Madi had seen the signs so long ago.  She had seen the way James looked at John even before the war ended.  She had accepted that James would always be a part of their lives, and that John would always love James.  When they’d saved her from Woodes Rogers, she’d looked at James and she’d known.  She’d known he’d done it for love as well, and it had been _worth_ it.  She had looked at James and known.  If her life was to be defined by two men, then she would be glad it was them.

Madi could treasure John.  Could honor him as her husband and wish him well.  She could hide him away from the pains of the world by leaving him in a house well defended by those who would die for him.  But she couldn't change him.  

“He loves them,” Madi knew, then.  Israel grunted.  Waiting.  “I want him happy.”

“Do you?” Israel asked her.  

It hurt.  It hurt badly.  But she knew where it was coming from.  She understood why he asked.  Madi had left John behind, and if she wanted him happy...she would have taken him with them.  “He wouldn’t have been happy without them,” she argued.  

“He’s not happy without _you.”_

It’s an argument she didn’t want to hear.   It's a feeling she didn't want to remember.  She didn't want to imagine James and Thomas and John all sitting together in their home.  Beckoning her.  Welcoming her back.  

Shaking her head, Madi commanded him to tell her something else, anything else, and he shrugged.  “Constance is pregnant.”

Oh.

_Oh._

 

***

 

Mr. Keith was _furious_ when he discovered what Israel had done.   _Furious_ when he learned of what his daughter had done.  But there was only one thing he can do about it, and he made his position clear.  “Thou will marry.”

“I will not,” Israel argued back.

“Yes,” Madi sighed, “You will.”  Israel looked particularly offended at her involvement, but she didn’t care.  Constance was sitting at her side, and there was a child within her that was now a part of their family.  

Madi’s mind continued to circle back to the Cherokee.  Their family units.  Their kin.  Mother to mother.  John was Madi’s husband.  James and Thomas and Israel were her brothers.  This child was theirs.  Their clan.  Whatever else that could be said about any of this, it was that.  They made a new family together when they left the Island, and this child would be a part of it.

Israel refused to marry her, and Madi wrote a letter to John.  

It was only a matter of time.

The Quaker community was nothing if not determined.  They spoke of little else except marriage and duty.  Responsibility.  Constance’s cousins discussed the fate of abandoned women and their children as though they’d personally felt the pains and suffering of such people.  They spoke of debt and drudgery.  They spoke of starvation and suicide.

They’re shameless in their tactics.

Constance and Israel wed on a rainy Wednesday in the Meeting House at noon.  The whole community gathered to give their opinions on the wedding.  Men and women alike stood and gave testimony unto the importance of marriage and the duty of the husband.  Madi sat nearby and made eye contact with Israel as he suffered abuse and didn’t seem to know what to make of any of it.  

He didn’t like the party or the people who came to wish them well.  But Constance leaned in at one point and started to talk to him about the sea and Madi watched as a man who once butchered an entire family, set about making his own.  “You can’t have a family when you live the life I lived,” Israel explained when they had a moment to themselves.

She understood.  Even before he spoke the words, she understood.  She nodded her head.  She listened closely.  “If you’re going to kill indiscriminately you cannot allow yourself to care.”

“You care for John.”

“John’s a shit.”

“You care for me.”

“That’s my duty.”  She smiled.

“You’re a married Quaker now.  You’re not supposed to lie.”

“Just ‘cause she’s the non-violent, truth telling sort doesn’t mean I am.”

“No,” Madi agreed.  “It doesn’t.”

They can’t stay here.  The closer Constance gets to the day she’s set to deliver, the more likely it is that they will never leave.  Constance will need to stay still for some time, and it will delay them over and over.  It could be years until they could go home.  It has been almost a full year since she left.

Thinking of John hurt.  Missing John hurt worse.  “We should go,” Madi suggested in a soft voice on a bright Monday morning.  Israel doesn’t even need an explanation.  He simply went to Mr. Keith and explains that they want the child born with their family.  The Quakers were upset, but unlike the Cherokee...the husband’s will is the way in this culture.  Mr. Keith bid them well.  He asked for notice as soon as the child was born, and Madi swore it would be done.

They traveled slowly.

Constance’ belly grew with each week, and they rested far more frequently than they had to begin with.  “Tell me about John?” Constance asked.

“John is…” Madi trailed off.  Kind.  Gentle.  Loving.  Passionate.  He smiled with the light of the sun.  He moved with the grace of the sea.  He adapted as all the best creatures in life adapt.  He was shy.  He was quiet.  He could tell a story that all would believe.  He lied and he cheated and he took each opportunity that he saw.  

He loved and loved and loved.

He shrugged off harsh words from every person on earth, except for the few people who he dared show his heart to.  Then he suffered their rage and he wept in the dark when no one looked.  

He split himself into pieces and gave each piece to someone in his life, and he was the product of how they cared for those pieces.  He was abused and used and cherished and--  

“Everything you could ask for in a friend or husband.”

 

***

 

Margaret was born in Awiyagadoga’s home in Georgia, with women there to help Constance through it and Israel pacing outside.  Madi listened as he argued with Tsatsi.   _It’s too fucking soon,_ and Constance cried in terror that her baby would die.  But Margaret cried on her first breath and she was small and tiny and wrinkled just as all babies were.  

Awiyagadoga praised Constance as they washed and wrapped the baby.  “You have received a great blessing.  A girl to lead your line.”  Constance cried over her child and Israel stared down at it like he didn’t know what to make of the infant.

“Do they always look like that?” he asked in confusion, and Madi rolled her eyes to the heaven as Tsatsi laughed loudly and informed the others that Israel had much to learn.  

They hadn’t intended to come here, but Constance had started to feel the pains when they were not far.  It had been luck that they’d happened across Tsatsi who quickly brought them to the village and informed Awiyagadoga what was happening.  

The village celebrated for them, and Madi sat at Constance’s side.  “I don’t know how to be a mother,” Constance whispered.  

“Your husband does not know how to be a father,” Madi informed her as well.  She placed a hand on Constance’s.  “You will learn together.  And we will help you.”  Awiyagadoga observed it all with a knowing look, and even if she hadn’t understood the words, she’d understood the meaning.  She nodded at Madi and it felt like the same nod that Madi’s mother would give her when she’d made a decision to be proud of.   _Well done._

It felt right.

Madi traced a finger along Margaret’s cheek.  Smiling at the little one.  Remembering what she had learned all those months ago.  There will always be more.  Someone will always need help.  She couldn’t help everyone.

She _could_ help her family.

She could help _her_ people.  

She could only do the best she could do, but then she would need to know that there will always be those she could not save, and accept that there was nothing more she could do about it.

 

***

 

Madi is home.

John is in her arms.

His lips are on hers.

His weight presses against her body.

He is different.  Softer in ways he cannot remember him being so soft.  He looks at her as though she is the sun in the sky, and he is her sky.  He is her sky.

Hennessey’s arrival is one that is shocking and strange, but in a way it feels right.  This is their family.  This is their home.  James’ father being here, now, when they’ve all come together, is as it should be.  Madi misses her mother now more than any other moment in the past few years.  She wonders if her mother is even still alive.

But there are so many other moments that Madi needs to give her attention to.  So many other words that must be spoken.  Must be mentioned.  Thomas had kissed her husband, and Madi has considered all that she knows.

“I love you,” she tells John, because that’s the truth.  She can rage at the world and be angry at everything, but she’s tired of being angry.  Tired of hating and wanting vengeance.  Tired of being separated from the one person in her life that has always put her first.  

The Quakers believe in always telling the truth.  No matter what it is, you speak the truth.  Even if it’s painful to hear, the truth must be spoken when asked directly.  There are endless truths that Madi can say now.  There are endless possibilities that she could bring to the table.  But the truth she wishes to give to John is the same truth that she wishes to give to Thomas and James.

“I love all of you.”  She looks at Thomas, standing so close to John but still radiating anger and frustration.  Hennessey’s visit throwing him off kilter in a way she’s still trying to come to terms with.  “I forgive you.”  It’s like the the levy has broken.

It’s like the dam has cracked.  Everything comes pouring out, and Thomas strides to her and holds her as well.  She feels his body next to hers and his breath against her neck.  “I’m sorry,” he says to her.  

“I know.”  She does know.  She _knows._

But this is family, and she is home.

And they can do this.

All of them.  

“I forgive you.  I love you.”

It’s true.

 

It’s true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I played a little fast and loose with dates here. Benjamin Lay really did do everything in this, but I'm off by a few years if we take the time period of this story into consideration. Still. Considering Black Sails' tendency to do that as well it's not that bad. :x


	22. The Reeve's Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the rating for this series has been upgraded to E because of explicit content in this chapter and possibly the final three.

They eat dinner together.  Madi and John press against each other’s sides.  Israel and Constance sitting opposite.  James and Thomas at the head of the table with Hennessey between John and James.  The safest place for him, certainly.  Whatever was said in the house between James and Hennessey after Thomas and John left, no one speaks of.   

Instead, Madi tells them about her travels.  About the things that she has learned.  The books she’s read and the ideas she’s gathered.  If Hennessey is offended by a woman of her skin color commanding so much of the conversation, he wisely says nothing.  

John expertly steers the discussion time and time again.  His hand is wrapped around hers.  He smiles at her like he cannot stop smiling at her.  Like he has no other desire than to look at her, here and now.  His thumb runs over the back of her knuckles, his eyes spark with tears when he stares too hard.  He’s missed her.  

All the awkward dinners in the world couldn’t amount to what it would take for her not to sit here with him.  Holding his hand, and revel in the satisfaction that they are finally together again.  Dinner ends quietly and without much fanfare, and Hennessey is permitted to leave and return to his ship.  

Israel tells them he’ll stay on guard through the night and raise the alarm if they need to flee.  Madi knows they’ll be like this for a while yet.  Nervous and unsettled.  Until the Navy’s gone and the threat’s left for good.  “I don’t understand,” Constance admits softly.  Margaret’s suckling at her breast, and they’re standing by the window.  Looking out and watching as Israel paces.  

“As with everything that happens in this life, it’s complicated.”  Madi tries not to think about Constance and Margaret in the room that was so lovingly made for them.  Tries not to think how they’ll be there alone as Israel paces the ground.  It’s not what Israel wants either, but there’s fear here.  Fear and uncertainty.  Letting Hennessey leave is an act of faith.  One that they must see through until the end.  

And while they wait, Madi cannot stay away from John.  There’s so much that needs to be discussed.  “Are you going to be all right?” Madi asks gently, and Constance smiles.  Nods.  

“Tired as it is,” she admits quietly.  “I’ll get what rest I can, yeah?”   

She starts heading back to the room above the barn, and Madi watches her go.  Watches as Israel turns from his position in the road and keeps track of her too.  Hand still on his sword.  Waiting for a battle to fight.  

John’s arms slide around Madi’s waist.  He never had been one to initiate contact in the past.  He’s shy about touch.  In ways she doubts many people know.  He has a tendency to sit isolated from others.  Wait until someone will approach him.  While he won’t shrug someone off, he’s not always used to acts of comfort.  Not always used to reaching first.  Hands always displaying the slightest bit of hesitation before they make contact. 

She doesn’t forget the hug he gave her after her father passed.  He’d held her like he’d never held another person on purpose in his life.  And at the time, so desperate to be taken away from the thoughts of her father, it had been perfect despite his awkwardness.  He’d held her.  Gently rest his head against hers, and she breathed him in.

Now, he slides against her.  More confident than he’d ever been in the past.  His arms lock about her waist, and he presses his head to hers same as always.  He’s comfortable with her body, and he has confidence in his touch.  

No.

Not confidence.

Desire. 

His arms are tight around her, his touch possessive.  He doesn’t want to let her go.  Doesn’t want to release her in the slightest.  She doesn’t want him to either.  Tapping his hand, she feels him loosen his grip just enough for her to turn in his arms.  Wrap her own arms around his neck and hold him close.  

His breath is warm against her throat.  Madi feels it tingle down her spine.  She presses her nose against his shirt.  It smells of onions and sweat.  The heat of the kitchen and the exertion of the day staining his clothes with his own deep musk.  Something sour but not bad.  She holds him closer.

Vaguely, she’s aware that Thomas and James have left them to themselves.  She’s aware that they are no longer in the room.  That she and John are alone for the first time in nearly a year, and she missed him so much.  She missed him more than words could say.  She tilts her head back to look at him.  To examine the changes time has wrought on him.  

He has three grey hairs starting to grow along his temples.  His weight is still unfortunately slender.  His posture is slooped just a little.  Madi cannot tell if she is holding him up or if he’s holding her.  They are propping each other up here in this room and she doesn’t want to stand any longer. 

“Take me to bed,” she commands, and John listens.  He leads her on.  Down the familiar hall.  To the door that opens to a room that’s not changed at all.  Everything is exactly as she remembers it.  The furniture, the coverlet, the sheets.  It’s as if John has frozen this room in time.  Keeping it as exact to her memory as possible, so she would always find her way home. 

She closes the door behind them, and she looks at her husband.  “Take off your clothes.”  His fingers go to his shirt.  They grip at the hem and pull.  Jerking it up and over in a fluid motion.  His balance careful and steady.  The shirt falls to the floor, and she scans over his skin.  No new injuries.  No changes she should be made aware of.  His ribs show, though.  Like they had when he’d first arrived on the Island after their ship had been becalmed.  She remembers seeing his ribs as he slept.  When their healer had a chance to look him over. 

John’s arms wrap around his stomach self-consciously.   He flushes under her scrutiny, but she doesn’t care for his embarrassment.  She merely lifts a brow.  Waiting for him to continue.  He cannot do it standing.  He needs to amble toward the bed and lower himself down so he can remove his boot.  Then, once it’s set to the side he can slide his breeches off.  Wriggling and awkward.  

His skin only grows more red under her scrutiny.  But, more importantly, his cock has started to harden between his legs.  He looks at her, waiting for instructions, and she takes her time in approaching.  In undoing the laces of her dress from her shoulders. The front and the back tie together in knots by her neck, and once undone they flop over.  Bearing her breasts while her skirt remains in place.   _ That  _ is one sheet of fabric all around.  She’d need to pull it over her head to remove it, but this dress was made for nursing mothers to have easy access for their babies. 

It hadn’t fit Constance, and had been given as a gift.  

Madi hadn’t considered the alternative benefits for such a dress until this moment.  Watching as her husband’s eyes grew dark as he looked at her.  His hands clenching on the mattress of the bed.  His lips part. 

Stepping even closer, she feels his knees press against her legs.  She need only lean forward, and his lips would be on her.  Would be able to lick and taste and suckle like a babe himself.  Searching for a nectar she couldn’t provide.  Madi’s left hand touches John’s greasy hair.  Feel it tangle about her fingers as she strokes the space behind his head.  

His parted lips are sinful.  His gaze filled with adoration.  She leans forward, pulling at John’s head as she moves, and suddenly his arms are around her once again.  His lips seal about her left niple.  He shifts so he’s as close to her as possible, and Madi holds his head in place as he sucks and licks and swirls his tongue about. 

John’s experiences in the past had left little to the imagination.  He’d regaled her with tales of meeting the whores of Nassau’s rendition of Black Beard.  Of the women he’d indulged in back when he was sailing for a merchant’s vessel.  Of the men he’d tried to kiss when he hadn’t understood what consequences were.  

John’s body arches backwards and she’s pulled in.  He’s sprawled on the bed, but she’s straddling him now.  Her breast still at his mouth.  He’s making noises.  So sinful and wrong, but she relishes the sound of each little grunting mewl.  

It’s just a matter of shifting her weight here or there.  She can feel John’s erection as it presses against her hip.  She pulls back just enough for John to catch his breath, then feeds him her other breast.

His grip is tight.  Fingers bruising in their grip about her back.  He sucks her in and she slides her legs to the side, widening her hips and feeling as he gave a slight thrust in anticipation. 

His cock is fully hard now.  She can feel it every time she slides back and forth on John’s body.  Feel how it rubs against the junction between her hips and leg.  It sails between the crevice.  Warm and firm and tantalizing.  

John’s eyes are wide and dark.  His expression is one of open wonder and desire.  He looks up at her like she is his savior.  The second coming.  The great deliverer.   _ Deliver us from evil.   _ She reaches for him and feels his cock twitch in her hand even as he gasps around her.  A penitent sailor from the sea.  Desperate for the forgiveness of his god. 

It’s nothing at all to arrange him properly and slide down along him.  His eyes flutter and his lips pull away from her breast as his neck arches.  Curls are splayed in all directions.  He shudders and twitches and his hands spasm around her.  His hips jerk upwards, and Madi places her palms along his chest and shoves him down to the bed.  Pinning him to the mattress. 

He is hers. 

Utterly.  

She shifts above him.  Feels him everywhere.  Her palms, her legs, her heart.  She feels him like a physical presence inside her chest cavity.  Swelling and moving, and all encompassing.  Just as his cock presses against her in a way that makes her groan.  Madi leans down now.  Feels his hands settle on her hips.  Just above the fabric of her dress.  Still draped along their bodies.  He squeezes his fingers around the folds.  Jerks desperately at it.  Not sure if he should try reaching under to feel her legs properly or to keep holding on.  As if it were the only thing he can cling to. 

Madi kisses John’s lips.  He surges forward.  Kissing fierce.  Passionately. Hot.  His nose crashes against hers and his hair scratches her face.  She doesn’t care.  She rolls her hips and he mewls like a dying thing.  

She tastes the salt on his cheeks.  Licks a line down his throat.  There’s a spot right at the crook of his neck-- _ there-- _ where he gasps and moans each time she touches it.  He jerks frantically within her.  Harder and faster with each passing second.  She grinds down to meet each thrust, and when the end is near, she knows it by the way he chants her name. 

The way his hands stop reaching for her skirt alone and instead take hold of her hips properly.  The way that his back arches and he pushes so very deep inside her.  “Mine,” she tells him, and he nods frantically.  Searching for her lips just as she feels the pleasure of their union eclipse all thoughts that came before. 

He surges forward when he comes.  Sitting upright and holding her so extremely tight in his arms.  His head is tucked to her chest, but he’s just breathing harshly against her.  Trembling as he finishes within her.  She savors each and every second.  Until the rush of pleasure has left, and they are still there.  Squeezing each other so terribly tight.  He’s not moved at all.  Just held her.  Held her so very close to him.  As if she’ll fade away into nothingness the moment he lets her go. 

Madi kisses his hair.  Once.  Twice.  Three times.  She threads her fingers through the locks.  Not nearly as long as they once were, but growing in well.  She kisses his crown more firmly.  Nudging him with her face until he lets them lay back.  It takes her a moment to wriggle free of her dress, but when she does she can lay naked with him.

Feel his come inside her as it slides out.  She should do something about it.  But...she doesn’t want to.  He must know it too.  Because as she rests her cheek against his shoulder and they settle into a familiar position of comfort, he tilts his head to her.  Silent wonder so very clear. 

“Did you...while I was gone?” she asks.  The tender moment broken immediately.  She feels him go tense beneath her.  His arm around her back a rigid thing.  

“There are no words I can say that can--”

“--John.” She sits up.  Feels her hair slide along her back and spool along the bedding.  She reaches for his face.  Traces his skin with the very tips of her fingers.  Sliding along old scars and across imperfect blemishes.  “You have a propensity for self sabotage, did you know that?” 

He does know that.  He’s always known that.  Just as she has always known that he’s always known that.  The John she fell in love with all those years ago had needed her because he knew he was going to be throwing himself into a pit of despair, and she had reached out to him because she had seen the need for it too.  “It cannot be wise to so closely align oneself with a saboteur such as I.” 

“You are so concerned with wisdom, when it is not wisdom that I look for when I think of you, John Silver.”  She lets her fingers slide from his face.  Down along the path his jaw makes to the juncture on his neck.  Still down over his collarbone, until it slips into the divot where his sternum starts.  He releases a shaky breath, staring at her with uncertainty, as she trails her fingers along his chest until her palm can rest against the tireless beating of his sad and broken heart.  “You’ve a clever tongue, my husband, but your strength lies in your loyalty and your love.  Not in the intricate plans you think will help.”

“I’m not sure if I should be offended or not,” he informs her quietly.  

She smiles at him.  Kisses his lips to soothe any growing paranoia he may be having.  She sighs in contentment when his body starts to unwind.  Muscles growing lax once more.  She is not mad at him.  Can find no fault in his behavior.  “You panic to easily, and when you panic you make  _ terrible  _ decisions.” 

“Such as?” he asks, and now he’s stroking her back.  Tracing along her skin.  She missed this so. 

“Sending James to Thomas without me.  Ending the war in such a way that it took  _ six years _ for us to recover?”  It speaks to how well he’s healed that he looks at her with only the slightest touch of agony.  It speaks to her own path to forgiveness that she can look at him and understand.  “I heard you even leapt off the Walrus when you first met James.” He blinks.  Face contorting into an absurd expression that quickly devolves into a booming laugh that echoes through the room.  He throws his head back against the pillows.  Chortling so much that tears come to his eyes. 

“Where on  _ Earth  _ did you hear that?” She just smiles at him.  It wouldn’t do to tell him all her ways.  But his smile is lovely and his laugh is infectious, and she giggles with him in turn.  Letting herself be drawn over so they can rest atop one another properly.  

Somewhere in the process she leans against his groin too much and he grunts.  Helping to adjust her so they can both be comfortable.  Madi folds her hands together on his chest and rests her chin on her knuckles.  Peering down at John from beneath the folds of her lashes.  “Tell me about them,” she encourages. 

He’s tracing her again.  Stroking her skin like it’s something to be revered.  “I don’t know how.” 

Madi hums.  “John Silver, at a loss for words.” 

It does them no good to push.  So she doesn’t.  Just closes her eyes, and lay there above him.  Feeling his heartbeat straight into her chest.  Knowing she’s home. 

 

***

 

Hennessey didn’t call for the Navy to attack in the night.  

He comes to the Inn in the morning, and finds Madi inside.  John had to wake up early and go down to get things ready, and Madi had wanted to see it.  He’s back in the kitchen while she’s wandering the main room.  Running her hand along the wood and inspecting the craftsmanship.  Hennessey opens the door just as she finishes her second lap around the room, and they pause.  Staring at each other for a brief moment before he bids her good day. 

“You are Mr. Silver’s wife?” Hennessey confirms, and Madi nearly laughs.  For so long she’s been defined as her, herself, and no one else, that to be thought of merely in terms of John’s spouse is amusing.  

“I am.” 

He seemed a touch uncertain as to how to proceed now that he’s stated that, and they stand there.  Looking across the space at each other.  Neither stepping forward or offering any more information at all.  John’s cluttering about in the kitchen.  He’s singing something.  Wordless and nonsensical.  

Sometimes, when he’s truly at peace, John hums little ditties.  She doesn’t know where he’s heard them, but he collects music like he collects stories.  They come out very very rarely.  And if he knew they were no longer alone, Madi doubts he’d continue on.  

Metal claps against metal and John sings a little louder, likely trying to get her to smile and laugh.  Tell him to stop.  She doesn’t say anything.  Just listens to him sing, as she feels the tension rise.  Hennessey takes a step toward her, “I wonder if you could deliver a message for me.” 

There’s a letter in his hands.  Carefully folded and sealed with a stamp.  He holds it out between them, and Madi doesn’t move to take it.  She examines the thickness of the parchment.  The ribbon, even, that’s been used to hold it all together.  It’s several pages thick, and Hennessey must have spent a good portion of the evening preparing it once he returned to his ship.  Madi waits.  Watches his wrist as it straightens.  He’s not dropped his arm yet.  Still expecting it to take it.  “Why?” she asks.  He seems confused.  “Why do you wish me to deliver this on your behalf?” 

“Madi?” John calls.  Her silence, clearly, noted.  She listens as he thumps around the corner from the kitchen.  As he comes to a stop in the doorway.  Observing the interaction.  “Admiral.”  John’s voice is not nearly as threatening as it once was.  Madi’s almost delighted to know it.  It feels right.  Natural.  Even though the wary tone is unhappy, John hasn’t slipped into a world that she knows he’s struggled to get away from.

The Admiral clears his throat and shifts his attention to John.  The letter still held uselessly in his hand.  Loitering in the air.  “I was hoping you could deliver this?” 

“Why?” John echoes.  Madi smiles unbiddenly.  Hennessey is not nearly as amused.  His expression is sour, and John doesn’t seem to care one bit.  He limps forward.  Crutch thunking against the ground as he moves to stand in line with Madi.  “Give it to him yourself.” 

“I don’t believe that’s for the best.” 

_ “Fuck you,”  _ John growls.  Hennessey is not swayed.  He sighs.  Shakes his head. 

“You don’t understand.” 

“I  _ do  _ understand.  I understand what it’s like to leave someone behind and not let someone say goodbye.  I know what it’s like to abandon someone and think it’s for the best.  I understand what it feels like in the reverse.  What it feels like when your father leaves with nothing but a note saying it would all be fine.   _ Fuck you,  _ I understand plenty.  Don’t you fucking dare do this.  Not when you have a chance to make it right.  Not now.  Not like this.”  

The story isn’t true.  Few of John’s are.  But he’s felt abandonment before, Madi knows this.  And it’s close enough to the truth that the hungry desperation in his eyes is convincing.  The emotion he is so clearly displaying is real.  It doesn’t matter if the specifics are altered.  Doesn’t matter that Madi knows that there had been no letter.  That there’d been no choice where John’s parents were concerned.  It simply happened.  One minute there and then gone.  As if nobody cared at all. 

Hennessey’s fingers tighten around the letter.  “This document contains a pardon for James McGraw and Thomas Hamilton.  I’ve recorded it in the books and ledgers on my log, and have done them the courtesy of signing it on their behalves.  James won’t have asked nor signed such a pardon, and so I’ve given it to him.  Thomas, having been declared dead for so long, may never have run afoul with the law, but should he ever have such problems...they will not be because of his past.  It is my understanding that you, and your...associate Israel Hands already received your pardons.” 

John doesn’t seem to know what to say.  “Yes,” Madi says for him.  “They have.” 

“Then it seems I have not needlessly recreated them.”  Turning back to Madi he waves the documents more insistently.  This time, she takes them.  Strange, how such a little thing can change so much in a person’s life.  “I was never intending to stay in Savannah for more than few days, and it seems that I’ve been summoned to attend to a matter in the north.”

“You should say goodbye yourself,” John insists, but it’s useless.  He’s done his duty by ensuring Madi’s accepted the pardons on his behalf. 

“It has been many years since I last saw James.  And if this is the last action that I can do for him, I will go to my grave a content man.” 

“Say goodbye.  For fucks sake, you may never get another chance.   _ He  _ may never get another chance.”

But Hennessey has made up his mind.  He tips his head.  Gives them one final look, as if trying to fathom how their relationship possibly came to be, and then turned on his heel.  Opening the door to the inn and stepping out onto the road.  “No.”  John growls out.  “No, no no.   _ Fuck this. _ ”  He hops on one foot, twisting so he can reach for Madi’s left wrist and give it a gentle hold.  “Get Flint.  Tell him what happened, and give him the God damned choice to say goodbye.” 

She doesn’t remember the last time he called James ‘Flint’, but it doesn’t matter.  He’s right.  And their loyalty isn’t to Hennessey.  It’s to James.  She twists her wrist.  Gives John’s hand a squeeze, then leaves. 

Madi  _ flies.   _ She runs hard and fast.  Her clothes whip all around her, and it doesn’t matter because her body has a mission and a purpose and she knows better than anyone how this feels.  What it will feel like.  She runs.  Runs and runs.  The ground is air beneath her.  The earth is nothing.  It is a path of light that guides her to James like a beacon in the dark. 

She sees Constance and Margaret in the garden.  Israel watching over his family from the porch.  He stands immediately, hand on his sword, but Madi ignores him.  Throws open the door.  Thomas and James are startled for a kiss in their own kitchen. They pull away from each other, and James moves instinctively to shove Thomas behind him. 

“Hennessey’s ship is leaving.  You can catch him if you hurry.” 

James hesitates only for a moment.  Glances at Thomas as if to gauge his reaction, but Thomas shakes his head.   _ “Go.”  _  And James is gone.  There’s a horse in the barn.  He’s on it and riding as fast as he can within moments.  Gone before Israel even got a full and proper explanation.  John’s not back at the house yet.  Madi wonders if he left at all, or if he’s still standing in the Inn, in the place where so much drama had occurred, staring at walls and wondering what had happened. 

Thomas is quiet.  Standing with an apple in his hand.  It’s been bitten once.  Teeth dragging a great chunk from its center.  Water and juice stain his fingers.  He’s still in his white shirt and sleep drawers.  Bare feet.  Posture swaying slightly from sleep.  His neck arcs downward a touch.  Eyes half lidded.  

Madi walks toward him slowly.  Until they are standing so very near each other.  Thomas lets out a low shuddering breath.  When he finally looks up to meet her eyes, she wonders what he sees.  What is it that he thinks of when he looks at her.  

“How do you forgive someone for betraying what you wanted,” Thomas asks her quietly.  “When you understand they did it for a reason you cannot wholly disagree with, but morally question in its entirety?” 

“You love them,” Madi tells Thomas.  

“I don’t,” Thomas replies.  “I never did.” 

“But you love  _ him.”  _ James.  Their focal point.  Their grace.  Thomas’ eyes squeeze shut and he breathes out harshly.  He tilts his head forward and Madi steps in one final time.  There is no where else to go but against him.  His arms wrap around her and she holds him there like that until Constance comes inside to see if they’re all right. 

Thomas apologizes for his appearance and excuses himself to get dressed properly, but Constance makes no mention of it.  “Is he all right?” she asks once Thomas has gone. 

“No,” Madi replies.  “But he will be.” 

 

***

For a time, they are living the part of the Reeve’s Tale.  

They are sinners and innocents all, and Madi hardly seems aware what bed she’s walking to or sleeping in.  She wakes in the night and goes to check on Constance.  Trips on baby cribs as she looks in on them both.  She falls asleep by the fire and wakes in her and John’s room.  And then, she closes her eyes one evening with John in her arms, and some hours later wakes to him jerking against her.  

She opens her eyes, but says nothing as John twists away.  He’s trembling.  Reaching for his crutch.  Leaning on it heavily as he takes wide steps - the fewer to wake her with presumably.  She watches silently as he leaves.  Standing to follow before he can do anything about it. 

He stops at James and Thomas’ door.  One shaking hand waiting to open.  As if he’s not sure he can go through with it.  “John?” she asks softly.  He flinches badly and looks back at her.  “Go.”  He doesn’t.  Instead, he makes his way down the hall.  Passing her.  Going out the door instead.  Israel must be awake on a night watch.  She observes from their bedroom window as he hesitates in the road before veering off and going to the barn.  He stays there until morning. 

“You’re my wife,” John tells her firmly later on that afternoon.  

But their late night wanderings don’t cease.  She watches John sleep by the fire.  Head against Thomas’ shoulder as he reads.  She watches John soporifically stumbling to a bed to sleep in one evening, and going to the wrong door. 

And for their part, Thomas seems restless the moment the sun sets.  James checks in on them more times than Madi ever noticed in the past.  It’s as if there are things that are so fundamentally obvious, and yet no one is daring to encroach upon them at all.  Dark circles appear under all of their eyes, and they have started to look like something close approaching death. 

John’s nightmares begin to worsen.  He thrashes in his sleep.  Fighting against something that doesn’t exist.  Sitting upright, panting.  Looking over her as if he’s terrified of seeing something very different in her place.   _ Enough.  _

If no one will be sleeping in their own beds properly, then Madi is going to do what she can to see that they’re all at least comfortable in the process.  With very little pity toward the confusion so clearly reflected on John’s face, she takes his hand and guides him after her.  His crutch is heavy and loud behind him. 

She knocks on James and Thomas’ bedroom door, and isn’t surprised to hear that they’re already awake.  “May we join you?” Madi asks, refusing to acknowledge the breech of conduct or propriety that they all seem determined to pretend exists in this household.  They are a home of sodomites and unconventional couplings.  She will not be shamed in her own home for wanting to sleep a full night’s sleep. 

Thomas and James share a look, and then slide over to provide as much room as possible.  The bed is very nearly too small for this, but Madi is determined to make it work if at all possible.  She leads John forward.  Pulling his hand like a mother to their child.  Guiding him to lay on a bed that she knows he slept on more than their own bed in her absence.  

When it comes to pure educated thought, there is no outsmarting those who know what they are doing.  And John very rarely should be consulted on anything approaching planning for his own happiness.  He’s rubbish at it.  

She lays down besides James, Thomas apparently thinking she’d appreciate it more.  And James  _ is  _ lovely.  He looks at her with such wonder and awe.  He cups her cheek and kisses her brow so kindly as she twists around.  Feeling his front press against her back.  John is before her.  She can hold him well like this. Can feel his heartbeat beneath her hand.  

He doesn’t say anything the whole while, and in the morning she wonders if he managed to sleep at all.  But that next evening, she feels nothing but relief when she sees him preceding her request by just going directly to Thomas and James.  This time, she knows he sleeps.  She watches him slip away.  Feels his body relax against her.  She watches how easily Thomas gentles John’s fears away.  How James knows the moment John starts to twitch in a way that warns of an impending nightmare.  How he can reach around her, like he’s done this before, and press a hand to John’s arm.  

She learns things from them that she’d never known.   _ Don’t hold his hand when he’s in the throes of a nightmare.   _ She asks why, and is told a story of a man who drowned in John’s arms, clinging to his hand.   _ Don’t pin him down if he thrashes.  _  He’s dreaming of his leg.   _ Whisper “I’m here” if it gets particularly bad.  _

And when James or Thomas suffer—she learns what to do to help them.  Pull back the covers.  Pet Thomas’ hair.  Let James see you.  Don’t shout or shake.  Don’t douse with water.  If James is particularly in a bad way, John shouting  _ Captain!  _ will wake him in an instant, though it takes James some time to reorient to reality on those nights. 

Thomas kisses her one evening, one month since she returned to their home and five days since they began sharing a bed.  John freezes in the bed as he watches.  Eyes wide and fingers trembling.  James sighs and presses a hand against John’s shoulder.  Madi sees all this from the corner of her eye, and even then, her attention is divided.  

Thomas’ lips are warm.  Gentle.  Not nearly as chapped as John’s.  He kisses her tenderly and with great reverence, and when he pulls away, he looks at her as he waits for judgment.  “You should have asked first,” she admonishes, because his manners in this regard are appalling.  

“Asking generally gives one time to think about saying no,” he replies without a hint of shame or apology.   _ Better to ask forgiveness than permission,  _ Madi thinks as she tries to decide her opinion on the matter. 

She knows Thomas, and knows his penchant for giving kisses to those he cares for.  He likely expects nothing more to come of this.  But he’s offering it if she wishes for more.  Even as surprising as the kiss may have felt, it hadn’t been surprising in its entirety.  It is who Thomas is.  A cat who cannot change his ways.  Always a mouser at heart, no matter how much his circumstances change. 

He shows his love and affection and his tenderness by sharing all of himself with those around him.  And this is no different.  He is offering to be hers if she wishes to be his, and he has no designs to tear her away from John in the least.  

So she steps forward and kisses him too. 

Thomas smiles against her mouth.  His hands raise to cup her head, but she will not permit such a thing.  He hasn’t shown that he deserved it.  She steps into him.  Uses his own long limbs against him as she crowds him backwards.  Forcing him to move or be trodden upon.  His knees bend when they reach the bed, and she is on him.  Kissing him firmly and all the while very aware of her husband’s eyes upon her. 

She pulls away from Thomas and meets her husband’s gaze straight on.  Waiting.  Waiting until the very moment he inclines his head ever so slightly.  As if he doesn’t know what else he could possibly do.  He stares at her as if she has him by a collar and chain.  Willing to do anything she wishes because it is  _ she  _ who wishes it. 

“Give him the kiss he’s been longing for,” she tells John.

Madi isn’t sure which one of them has changed the most.  He, so desperate for her forgiveness that he followed each one of her orders for years on the off chance it would lead him to salvation.  Or her, who grew so used to him listening to her every command that seeing him now, approaching Thomas as best he can with one leg and an awkward starting point, drives something warm and hot through her body.

_ Bless him.   _ Thomas catches John as he tips forward, balance lost on an awkward step.  James had caught one of John’s arms, but Thomas caught the rest of him.  And now they stare at each other under Madi’s gaze and Thomas tips John’s head back with a brief nudge from his nose.  He kisses John then, and Madi feels heat growing from deep within. 

James’ eyes meet hers over Thomas and John’s shoulder.  Fierce and full of wanting desire.  They too had been dancing this dance for so very long.  Playing like they knew all the rules, that they knew how to read each and every situation and could devine the solution.  Make everyone else think that you know what you’re doing so no one questions your commands. 

_ Never was there a Cesear… _

She lifts a hand, and he meets her hand in the air.  

So very long ago, she had looked at him across the span of a ship she’d been held hostage in, and she had felt as though she could spend her life with James at her side.  With John living in the space inside her heart, and James being there to guide her through the terror and despair.  She’d very nearly requested that she stay with them forever.  Marry her a second time, as some people do.  It wasn’t rare or unheard of on her Island.  Merely uncommon.  She’d have been willing for James.  Had circumstances and her mother allowed.  

It would not have been acceptable for Julius.  She’d never considered it an option, and neither had her mother.  Something she’s terribly grateful for.  And even now, in his world, it is not a thought worth entertaining. 

But she’d thought of it then.  She remembers it now.  

Thomas stole a kiss from James.  One he earned so much earlier than Thomas ever did. 

She lets James guide her closer.  Steps between his legs.  Lowers his lips to James as he sits there, her willing supplicant.  Her gentle guide.  Her stalwart defender. 

Her eyes flutter.  Her heart is set to burst.  She feels hands.  Hears noises.  She’s hoisted up and lain flat on their bed.   _ Her  _ bed.  She sees John.  She sees Thomas.  Sees James.  Something settles deep within her. 

>   
>    
>  There quietly   
>  She lay, all set to sleep again, until   
>  John soon leapt up and with a hearty will   
>  Was lying on her. Hardly had this wife   
>  Had such a merry fit in all her life,                        
>  So hard and deep he thrust as if gone mad.   
>  A jolly life that night these [four all] had

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a brief note for the Reeve's Tale - the original Reeve's tale has multiple cases of bed switching and rapes happening in the night as a result of it. There is no rape in this story. The sex had here is entirely consensual, and so while I have used the bones of that story for this, please note that I am fully aware of the darker context of the Reeve's Tale and am in no way attempting to downplay the original story or say that the partners were consenting in those tales.


	23. The Merchant's Tale

For James, it’s like breathing that first lungful of air after being dragged to the depths of the ocean.  John’s laughter in the morning is intoxicating.  Watching him with Madi is glorious.  He watches Thomas kissing their heads as he serves them food, and a part of him knows this isn’t real.  That it’s a dream and any moment now Miranda will be seated at the table as well.  The five of them will be joined together and everything will be right in the world.

He hears a baby screech, and he almost dares to hope.  But it isn’t Helen returned from the dead, it’s little Maggie in Constance’s arms.  Israel joining them too.  And the spell is broken, the dream a nightmare.  Reality always is the cruelest nightmare of all.

The breath of air is stolen from his lungs.  “Rough night?” Madi asks Constance gently as she gathers Maggie up.  Rocking her to her chest as Constance reaches for food.

“She won’t stop crying,” Constance tells them.  James inspects the little terror.  Her tiny face is squished and unhappy even now.  Her mouth twisted about and her nose pressed in.  She’s moments away from wailing once more, and Madi hardly seems to care.  Just shushes the baby and stands up.

Starts walking around, rocking Maggie this way and that.  “There, there...that’s all right...hush now Margaret.  Hush now.” If Margaret had any compassion, she’d not wail at all, but it seems she’s going to be just as hostile as her father.  She opens her mouth and screeches.

Fat tears fall from her eyes and Constance bursts into tears as well.  “I just fed her.  I just washed her.  I don’t know why she’s crying.  I don’t know why.  I’ve done everything I can think of.  I’m sorry.”  James stares at Constance, and feels as though he’s preparing to enter a tempest.  The winds are crashing about the storm is screaming and there’s only one way to navigate through the hellfire and damnation that the ship is about to face.  Only, he’s not the Captain of this ship, he’s just a rigger.  And he’s holding on for dear life at the top of his t’gallants and there’s nowhere on earth he can go but down, down, down.

Then, before he knew what was happening, and seeming to decide that she can do better with Constance than with Maggie, Madi shoves the baby into James’ hands and sits next to Constance instead.  She rubs Constance’s back and gentles her through her tears, and James is caught.  Standing there with the baby in his hands.  He’s got her by the middle.  Thumbs on one side of her little body, the rest of his hand wrapping around her back.

Margaret seems just as surprised as him by Madi’s abrupt move because she’s ceased her wailing.  Deciding to stare at James like he’s done something to personally offend her, but she’s not particularly sure how best to let him know about it.  He’s rather certain he’d rather face down the tempest than this.  Margaret, clearly, agrees.  Her head rolls forward and he panics, shifting his grip immediately like he’s seen Thomas or Madi or Constance do.  “Jesus, James, you have to support her head,” Silver chides.  Like he’s done this before.

“You support her head,” he snipes at his friend.  John, as he always does these days when he wants to get out of something, motions to the empty space where his leg once was.  “One assumes I meant _with your hands,”_ James growls.  “Seeing as how you have _two.”_

Naturally, John picks up his plate and spoon at that exact moment.  Clearly showing he did _not_ in fact, have two hands readily available to support a baby or its head.  Maggie wiggles unhappily against James’ shirt and he doesn’t know what he’s doing.  He’s avoided holding her until now.  Avoided her as much as one can, all things considered.  But now here she is, and his skin feels hot.  

He hears a distant screech of wheels on cobblestone.  Horses whinnying unhappily.   _Miranda?  Miranda?!_ Blood and--

“--James?” Thomas is right in front of him.  Older.  Dressed poor and improper.  His head’s free of blood, his hands are clean.  He’s got both palms pressed to either side of James’ body, not reaching for Maggie but very clearly in a position to do so if he needs to.  Israel is just behind him.  Face scowling and dark.  

“Take her,” James grinds out.  

His partner nods.  Thomas’ hands slide along his arms until they’re cradling around Margaret as best they can while James refuses to move an inch.  They’re frozen.  James tries to will his arms to unwind, but he can’t.  Thomas doesn’t try to pressure him, but Margaret’s still pressed against James’ body.  He can feel her little limbs.

He remembers Helen’s limbs.  Too fucking small.  Miranda had screamed so horribly when the baby passed.  

_He’s going to be sick._

Abruptly his grip fails him, but Thomas is there, catching Margaret before she slides an inch, turning and giving her to Israel and following as James runs.  Because he does run.  He flees the house and everything in it without so much as a glance to a single person in the room.  He just knows that Thomas is following, and he doesn’t have Maggie, and there’s only one reason for it.  There can only _be_ one reason for it.

But James is past caring.  He doesn’t want to know anything.  He just wants to be somewhere else.  Thomas grabs at his wrist.  Jerks him around.  They’re lost amongst the trees, and James is stumbling over his own feet.  He’s tripping against a fir.  His back strikes bark, and his hands are still snatching and snaring.  Thomas is pressed up against him.  Standing so unbearably close.

“Are you here?” Thomas asks.  Like he _knows._  But how can he possibly _know_ when he’s been holding Maggie from the start.  From the first impossible moment when the baby came to them, how can Thomas possibly understand?  He’d said he’d understood back before Margaret became a reality.  But things are different now that the little girl is here.  Now that her cries are real.  Now that her heart beats and she’s not a blood soaked thing that came far too early without a single breath in her lungs.  

 _No,_ James wishes to scream.   _No I’m not here._ He’s twenty years ago, holding Miranda’s hand as she sobs into her sheets.  He’s in Nassau, watching Miranda wake in the mornings.  He’s in London, dancing with her at a fête.  He’s in Charlestown, watching her be shot in the head.  Watching her corpse be desecrated. He’s not _here._

For a brief moment he’d thought she could be here with them too.  He’d thought that it would be all right.  That he’d have everything that he wanted.  She’d be here.  She and Thomas could be together.  And “I’ve replaced her,” James whispers.  

“No.”  Thomas is too generous, James thinks.  He’s too kind.  He sees John and Madi and he doesn’t consider them as the perfect parcel sent to deliver them from the agony of losing Miranda.  He doesn’t consider that perhaps that’s exactly what they were.

John and his adventure and his fondness for arguing and manipulation.  Playing devil’s advocate because he’s good at that.  He’s talented at that.  Madi and her perfect poise and grace.  Her wry expressions and her ability to convey a command with a single look.  Who gives a command and expects it to be followed.  Who doesn’t think twice about taking control of any situation.  Who gives comfort her her certainty, and expects them to perform at a higher standard always.  Holding them accountable for their misdeeds, but offering forgiveness when it’s earned.

They are the world in balance.  John, the agent of chaos, and Madi the agent of serenity.  Together they can do great things, and together - they are Miranda in all her perfection.   _I have been fucking committed to you…_

James sags against the bark.  He breathes harshly, and tries to forget the feeling of that child in his arms.  How it invokes endless images of the first woman James wanted to spend the rest of his life with.  How it feels like a betrayal.  

“This is not what Miranda would have wanted." Thomas says it like it matters.

“She would have wanted to _live.”_

 _“Well she can’t!”_ Thomas snaps back.  It’s brutal.  It’s horrifying.  It cuts through James straight to the quick and he stares at Thomas.  Unable to argue.  Unable to protest.  He looks at the only other man who felt as he felt about Miranda.  The only person on Earth who could understand him.  “She can’t live.  She can’t come back.  She’s _dead._ You saw her body.  There is no prison farm, there is no surprise.  There is only her dead in the ground--”

James gags.

She wasn’t dead in the ground.  James had no idea where she was or what happened to her body.  He just knows that she certainly never received the burial she deserved.  No priest provided last rights.  No prayer to God was given in her honor.  There is no tombstone.  There is no grave.  James had made a tomb out of all of Charlestown for her, and who knows if her body still remains on the streets.  If a crow had feasted on her fettered flesh.  If dogs had torn her limbs from her corpse.  If it had merely been left to rot grotesquely in the sun.

Miranda deserved a cathedral ringing bells.  She deserved a proper funeral with a proper service.  She deserved honor and dignity and grace.  And Peter Ashe would have given that to James, to _her,_ so long as he agreed to do whatever he said because he was a _fucking worm._

He betrayed his friends, his family, his dignity and in the end he just faded away into nothingness.  Leaving _them_ with nothing too.  “We just wanted your pardons.”  Those damn pardons.  Those _fucking_ pieces of paper that led them to nothing but misery.  That Thomas and James fought for, that Hennessey fought for, that they lost _everything_ for.  

“I never thought I would see you again,” Thomas tells James.  His body pressing so close.  “Dead, not dead, I didn’t know what you were doing, where you might be, who you might be with.  Ten years of certainty that you and I would never meet again.”

James’ mind whirls.  His head spins.  He feels a familiar rise of desperation starting to swell within him.  The loss of Thomas still too near.  “I miss Miranda more than words can say.  She was our wife.” _Ours._ Because Thomas has always shared with James.  Has always used that word, even when it never quite applied.  No lawman or legal representative had ever declared Miranda as James’.  They’d never made their relationship official.  But she had been his.  

_His._

_Theirs._

“Do you imagine that she would have wanted you to deny yourself even a moment’s happiness?”  It’s not about that.  It’s never been about what it had been about.

But for five years Thomas and James had lived a life of relative peace and obscurity.  And now suddenly they’re sharing their bed with others.  There’s a baby in their home. They’re moving toward something that James is still trying to wrap his mind around.

And not so long ago, he’d stood on a pier, shaking his father’s hand.  Wishing him well.  Asking him to come back when he’s not under orders from the Navy.  Embracing  him before the end.  Miranda should have been here.

“There are so many things that _should_ be happening,” Thomas informs him primly.  “But you cannot raise the dead, and the dead do not suffer the living.   _She’s gone,_ James.   _They both are._ Our wife and our daughter is gone.  But John and Madi?  Margaret?  They are no less loved nor precious because of our loss.  We never would have them now, if not for the loss of the past.  A chain of events led us here, and they were dark and awful all.  But moving on, and finding happiness elsewhere doesn’t mean that those we loved are any less important to us.  And finding happiness in another?  Is _exactly_ what what Miranda would have wanted.”

James can still feel Margaret’s little heart beat.  Can still feel how she wriggled against him.  He had wanted his little girl so fiercely.  Wanted to see her in white lace.  Wanted to watch her grow up in fine silks.  He had never thought he’d hold a child again and Margaret had been too much of a shock.  Far too soon.

Resting his brow against Thomas’, James draws in air through his nose.  He memorizes the way Thomas holds him.  The way Thomas continues to whisper kind words.   _Christ,_ James thinks.   _I’m getting too old for this._

 

***

 

“I told them about Helen,” John tells James that night.  They’re sitting in the back of the Inn.  Someone’s playing music and there’s a sense of good cheer amongst the patrons.  It reminds James of being on the Island.  The night before that battle.  John at his side, and a shared mug of rum between them.

They’re on different steps.  John on a top step where James is closer to the bottom.  His head is at John’s knee, and he doesn’t mind leaning against John’s body.  Feeling his warmth against him.  

Everyone had left for the Inn by the time James and Thomas had returned earlier.  Thomas encouraged James to join him at the shop, and he had.  Spending the day flicking through books while Thomas repaired spines and threaded pages back into order.  When they finally had the time and energy to go up to the Inn, James saw enough to know that John had things well in hand.  Everyone is out there now, Madi and Constance tending to the kitchen while Israel kept an eye on things.  The baby is somewhere, James is certain, but he didn’t look for her.  Didn’t question where she was.  Just skirted about the issue.  Catching sight of John’s eyes toward the end of the evening and meeting him out here.

“She wouldn’t have given you Maggie if she’d known.”  John sounds like he’s trying to apologize for his wife, but there’s no need.  Madi hadn’t done anything wrong.  She’d tried to help, and she hadn’t known.  

James feels tired.  His joints creak and his neck aches.  He’s old, and turning grey, and he’s reaching the later part of his life.  The part of his life where change doesn’t come easy, and isn’t always welcome, and the past few years have been nothing but change.  “I doubt very much that even I knew it would trouble me to that extent.”

He listens as John hums.  Understanding.  Willing to listen. Sometimes there are moments when James wonder how exactly they got here.  Where John is his willing ear.  Where he’s the one James turns to.  Thomas is Thomas. But John is John, and James likes knowing where he stands with John.  Likes feeling as though John knows him too.  

“And if Madi and I had a child?” John asks him.  James can picture it.  He can see the child so vividly clear, and he feels the gruesome agony he felt when Miranda had lost their daughter.  Pain flairs within him.  He doesn’t want to see Madi like he saw Miranda.  Doesn’t want to see what losing a child would do to John.  Doesn’t want to feel it within him.

Margaret is still so very weak and small.  Anything could happen.  She could be caught with fever.  Could sleep wrong and they’d wake up to her dead.  It doesn’t have to happen now.  It could happen later.  After a year.  Two.  She could slip and fall and break her neck.  Why wait? Why take the chance?  If she was going to die why couldn’t she die now, before they had a chance to love her?

If John and Madi had a child, James knows that he will love it.  He will cherish it.  He will give it the world.  And their child will die, because in what universe will _they_ receive a good blessing?  

Something crashes to the ground behind them, and laughter booms.  Chatter growing as someone starts cleaning up the mess.  A responsible innkeeper would go back and check on things.  John just meets James’ eyes.  

“Come home with me?” he holds a hand toward him.  James takes it.  Helps hoist John upright.  

They don’t say goodbye to the others.  Maybe John told them what he’d planned. Maybe everything’s up in the air.  But it feels good to walk around.  It feels nice to move.  To separate himself from the dangers and threats of family and possibility.  

Back when they’d been training to fight together, James had learned John’s gait intimately.  It’s changed some over the years, but the pacing is similar.  He doesn’t walk too fast for John to keep up, and John uses his crutch with some decent authority.  It’s a part of him now.  Much like his natural limbs.  There doesn’t seem to be a difference now.  It’s all very much the same.

The house is dark when they get back.  James lights a candle.  Uses it to light a few others.  It does peculiar things to John’s face.  Shadows cut across his cheeks and along his nose.  Shifting his features.  Morphing his his expressions.  James draw the curtains, because while he doesn’t entirely know what John has planned...he knows he doesn’t want to be interrupted.

They stand before each other.  Yellow flames flickering shadows this way and that.  John’s watching his expression, and it’s so open and young.  He licks his lips, and James wonders what he’s thinking about.  Why he’s done this.  Arranged it so they’re here alone.  Now.

When James is still thinking about the things he’s lost.  When John is the physical embodiment of what’s replaced them in his mind.  James wonders if John is even aware of the turmoil living in James’ chest.  Then, as soon as the thought comes, James huffs.  Of course John’s aware.  There’s very little about him that John isn’t aware of.

James reaches forward.  He places his fingertips along John’s throat.  Slides forward so his palm cradles John’s neck, his thumb starts by wrapping around John’s neck.  But then he shifts it.  Trails it along the underside of John’s chin, pushing John’s head back.  Feeling how naturally John submits to him like this.

It’s different with John.  James has always known that everything was different with John.  But this, especially this, is different.  Thomas pushes and pushes.  Miranda and Madi both  guided and expected to be followed.  But John waits.  He waits and he doesn’t pursue things he wants because of fear or uncertainty, and isn’t that the most ironic part about their partnership.

This they know about each other.  John sees opportunities and he takes them, but only in regards to his own survival.  When it comes to the survival of those he cares about, he will always chose those first.  And when it comes to his own personal happiness, he will sacrifice it every time in the face of someone else’s so long as that person is one of his chosen few.  James will plan his opportunities and obsess over them until they become realities.  He will pour all his wrath and anger and despair into it until he gets what he wants.  But when you take the rage away...he’s not sure what to do with happiness.  With peace.

Perhaps there’s something a little bit broken about each of them.

John won’t start this thing with James.  Not unless James initiates it time and time again.  And perhaps James needs to initiate it.  Needs to obsess over it until it forms in the reality of his choosing.  Forcing John to understand the world that he’s created for them.  

James places his other hand on the small of John’s back.  Pulls him so their bodies are pressing in close.  He keeps John’s face tight in his grip, and he sinks his lips to John’s.  John’s body relaxes against him.  

There is no womb for James to impregnate.  There is no child that can come between them.  There is no lasting pain or suffering that can join from this union in the form of a dead infant they never got to know.  John is small and precious and he presses against James’ body, fierce and ardent like any lover.

“Have you ever had sex with a man?” James asks John.  He knows John’s seen.  Knows John’s watched Thomas and James when they’d thought they could find release before John joined them.  Knows that John’s laid beside them and understands the basic principles of the matter.

But their couplings of late have been kissing and petting.  Have been worshipful at best.  James and Thomas encouraging Madi and John more than anything else.  Hands helping to ease the way.  Hotly whispered words shared in the dark.

John shudders against James’ body.  He leans further into James’ hold.  “Yes.”  If it’s true, then it’s a bit of John’s past that James has never known for sure.  He thinks, unbidden, to the stories.  Violence and rape and pain.  James’ hand tightens around John’s face.  

“Was it kind?” There’s a lie that’s so plain to see, right there on the tip of John’s tongue.  James is staring right into John’s eyes.  Peering through the shields and the barriers.  Seeing the black and ugly thing that is the twisted mind of John Silver.  It’s burnt to ashes and crumbling to pieces, and John’s mouth starts to form a word James doesn’t need to hear.  

He presses his lips to John’s.  Swallows the catch of a voice that John gasps out.  Holds him even closer.  Supporting his weight.  Drawing back then, only to rest his brow against John’s in quiet acceptance and understanding.  “Are you afraid?”

“Yes.”  He answers swiftly and truthfully.  James can feel how John trembles.  But he knows John.  Knows full well that if no one is here and now, if he’s invited James back, if he’s arranged this venue to be empty for all except them, and if he’s starting this now...he knows John’s made this choice.  Fear or not.  He’s chosen.  He wants.  James knows full well what it’s like to be afraid to want.

Parallels upon parallels upon parallels.  Madi is Miranda, James is Miranda, John is Miranda, Thomas is Thomas.  But they all line up and step into line, mother, brother, father, son, friend, lover, home.  This one does this, the next does that.  James lost track of where any of them started and ended, but they all became a tangled web inside his chest.

Miranda is gone.  Thomas told James to find his peace.

Helen was never theirs to cherish.  James isn’t ready to make peace with that.  Not with Margaret so close and tangible and wrong in his mind.

But Miranda… “It was you,” James admits as he leads John to bed.  Holding his hand and walking backwards.  Guiding John through their home.  A light glimmering from the shoreline when one is lost at sea.  “You saved me from the depths when Miranda passed.”  John swallows thickly.  

The door to their room is nudged open, and James keeps walking backwards.  Until he feels the bed behind him.  Until John is so very very close.  Still trembling and uncertain.  He’d been fine earlier.  With Madi guiding him to Thomas.  With kisses and warm hands sliding along dark skin.  But this is different.

“I don’t want you over the side of my ship, John,” James whispers into the dark.  “I don’t want you in front of the crew.  I don’t want you over my desk, or panting in the galley for all to see who you belong to.”  John shivers violently.  He licks his lips.  His eyes flutter and he looks up at James as if he’s not sure what he’s meant to say.

Opium fueled confessions twisting between them.  

James casts them to the side.  They are irrelevant to his purposes.  They are meaningless to his designs.  He lifts his hands and he braces John as he guides the crutch away from his body.  Letting it fall just there out of reach.  John’s vulnerable before him.  He cannot run.  He’s too weak to fight if James dared to overpower him.

It is a choice.  A brave and desperate choice filled with love that James cannot deny.  “I wanted you from the moment you made your choice to align yourself with me properly.”  There are tears in John’s eyes.  A form of terror that cannot go unanswered.  John’s frightened.  So very aware that he’s trusting James not to destroy him.  Hoping that somehow he made the right choice.

James can feel it.  Can feel each and every choice that they had every made, and how they rose up to this moment.  He remembers sleepless nights on the ship.  Small stories passed in the dark.  The way John lied and lied about the treasure, and James responded by breaking him down one pieces at a time.   _You are not welcome in my head._

_If you can’t do your job properly...I’ll do it for you…_

Endless lines and arguments.  Endless swords in the back.  Stabbing at raw flesh until John himself spoke of his body like it was something to be ashamed of.   _Creature.  Monster._ And each word reminded James of the very thing he wished to conquer and destroy.  He wanted to rid the world of the notions of monsters, and yet here he was...creating a monster of his own.

One who had wanted nothing to do with the violence and hell he’d been shackled to, and one that had been more loyal to James than any man ever could be.  John had been loyal to _James._ Not to Flint or the Walrus.  But to _James._

And despite what a power mad pirate captain might have done, James never would have touched John on that ship.  Not even if John had managed to set his fear aside and approached him.  Not even if John had done what Thomas had done, and kissed him without asking.  Hoping James would not say no.

James captures John’s lips.

He guides John to his lap.  Sitting on the bed and adjusting so John can kneel over him.  John’s arms wrap around his shoulders, and James feels his breath as it blows hotly along his face.  His trembling hasn’t stopped.  He’s shivering as though any moment now this will change.  As though James will decide that tender and kind is unnecessary and he will do what he knows John fears.

Make the memory of their union rough and violent.  Make it painful and wrong.  Tear him raw and leave him sobbing.  Give him a scar that wounds more deeply than any other.  One that blemishes the love and affection John has been tricked into feeling.  One that leaves him empty and broken and sore.

 _He misses the person who tortured him,_ Thomas had said once.  Whispered in the dark during their quiet conversations that no one dares to intrude.   _Whoever it was, whoever turned John into_ this... _John misses them.  He knows he shouldn’t.  He knows he should hate them.  But he cannot do it.  And I think he fears that it could happen again, and when it does, he will not have the strength to leave._

James knows this is precarious.  He knows this is unfathomable.  He knows that they cannot do this wrong.  He is ever cognizant of the pains and horrors of their own relationships.  Of how they’ve failed their loved ones and each other too much.  Of how he tortured John's mind in an effort to break him, and now John is here.  After missing him so much he had nowhere else to go.  This tragedy is running its course, and James grits his teeth against it.  He won't lose John to their pain.

He needs to do this right.

John shakes and shakes, and James doesn’t push.  Doesn’t force him to start until he’s certain.  He holds John close, and he kisses him gently.  Tastes John’s lips.  His tongue.  His skin.  He feels John’s breath, his teeth, his hair.  He memorizes the bright blue of John’s eyes.  

“Tell me something true,” James whispers.  He doesn’t ask for this.  Not between them.  Not in a long while.  And John keens quietly in his throat.  Right leg tightening against his thigh.  

“I don’t know why I’m scared.”  It’s close to a lie. So very close.  James almost accuses him of it, but when he meets John’s eyes, he sees.  It’s not about whatever past thing that twisted John into pieces.  It’s not about what’s happening between them.  John wants this, and yet he’s shaking and nervous, and it’s true.  He’s caught between the two points, and he doesn’t know what to do.

“At your own speed,” James whispers.  John laughs.  Nodding awkwardly.  They just sit there then.  Sit there and breathe together.  Goat bleating outside.  Horse occasionally kicking the stall door.  No one comes.  No one interferes.  

John takes hold of James’ shirt and anchors himself as he kisses him.  James places his hands on John’s hips and feels the swelling of John’s erection.  They grind against each other.  John moving as best he can atop of James, and James shifting him this way and that.  Grip firm and solid.  

The friction is perfect.  A hot burn that slides through them both.  John groans into his mouth, and James secures his hold on John’s lower half.  Pressing and pushing and daring.  John groans again, and he hides his head into James’ shoulder.  Good enough.

James lifts his partner up and turns.  Splaying him back on the bed.  Immediately John goes rigid.  His breath freezes in his chest, and James waits.  Waits as John lays there, blue eyes blown wide and body not moving at all.  Not a single twitch or tremor.  James doubt he’s even breathing.  Not like this, then.  Not held down or bracketed beneath James’ arms.  James had thought it’d be easier, if John could see him.  But...perhaps exactly like this, if only things were different.  

“I want to feel you in me,” James whispers in John’s ear, and John’s statuesque body finally reanimates.  Finally twists and shifts.  He stares at James, mouth falling open.  So James kisses him.  Slides his tongue inside John’s cavern to do battle with John’s greatest weapon.  He defeats the challenger easily.  Pinning the organ down even as he licks his way about everything he can reach.  Tasting John and committing him entirely to memory.  “Put your hands…” He guides John’s wrist, and then John does the rest.

James’ breeches are removed, and John’s hands wander the swell of James’ ass.  There are things that need doing, and James explains each necessity while John stares at him with a student’s earnestness.  Oil is kept by the bed.  James shows John how to collect it.  How to get his hands prepared.  “I don’t want to hurt you,” John whispers, and James squeezes John’s wrist.

“You won’t.”

“That’s not...it’s not...I _will…_ ”

Thomas had been right.  James had been too.  Whatever the story had been.  Whatever the truth was, it ended with an understanding that things that should never hurt, hurt the worst.  Love is a broken thing and affection leads to abandonment.  And all John knows from love is that his body will be torn to shreds in the aftermath.  And yet he still brought James here.  Knowing this would happen.  “You’re an idiot,” James sighs.  He guides John’s hand back.  “Trust me...I know what I’m doing.”

If possible, John’s face turns the darkest shade of red James has ever had the good fortune to witness.  But James doesn’t dare pay it much mind.  In case John noticed and became too flustered to do a thing.  James guides him forward until he feels the light trace of fingers.  “Use just one.  Your index or middle.  Choose which feels _best, for--mmm…”_ Middle finger it is.

John enters him, slow and perfect.  He stares at James in wonder.  Not understanding, but clearly mystified by what he sees.  His hips jerk unconsciously beneath Flint’s body and he sighs at the natural suggestion it makes.  “You’ve done this to Madi…” James reminds, and John seems to understand.  

He moves his finger in and out.  The rough edges of his knuckles catch on each shift of his hand.  James hums as he feels it.  Groans when a particularly good thrust hits exactly where he needs it too.  All the while, James keeps himself ever aware of John’s erection.  Of the look of awe that washes over John’s face.  

One finger becomes two.  James rocks himself above John’s body, and he groans in perfect harmony with the squelching of their deed.  “I believe in you,” James tells him.  

A moment passes.  Then another.  Then John nods.  James shifts forward on his knees.  Prepares himself while John stares at his face.  Scared, but not nearly at the level of barely controlled restraint any longer.  

John’s cock is presented properly, and James slowly sinks down onto it.  He hears his sweet boy groan.  His voice catching on the exhales.  It’s so warm and full and perfect.  James rides him with little care for anything else.  He grunts and wails.  Curses and snatches Silver by the hair.  “You’re mine,” he growls.  Unable to stop himself.  “Mine and mine alone.”

“Stop—”

Everything stops.  John’s breathing hard.  Shaking again, staring at his closest friend, and very clearly deciding if he should flee.  “Tell me what it is,” James orders John firmly.  John’s hands are tight on his hips.  His eyes wide.  

“I’m not yours alone,” John says very clearly, but there’s something there.  Something where he seems so very close to fleeing.  As if merely speaking that truth would earn him a whipping.  A closed fist against his face.  Knocking teeth from his jaw and bloodying his nose.  James can imagine harsh words growled into the cosmos.  

 _Shut up you little shit_.  Can imagine John lying still beneath him just as easily as he can imagine him fighting with every fiber of his being.  Not stopping until he physically can’t.  Until they’re both bloody and broken and there’s nothing left of this fledgling relationship except for their guts and their scars.

James moves slowly.  Carefully bringing his hand to cup John’s face.  Feels how the skin is chill beneath his touch, how John swallows desperately.  He’s _terrified._  “I know,” James tells him.  He rocks a little.  As gentle as can be.  “You’re ours.  And we’re yours.”  He leans forward and captures John’s lips.  Breathes in John’s gasp of relief and returns it in kind when John’s hands shift.  Pulling him closer and no longer threatening to push him away.

“We’re going to stay with you, John.” The words hurt, James knows they do.  John hates being told someone’s going to be there for him.  It’s like a fire in the hull, a shot in the stomach.  Something hard and painful that’s going to kill you eventually but will only do it very very slowly.  “You’re going to be all right.”

 _“Christ,”_ John sits up.  His head bent forward against James’ chest, and James shifts his legs.  Adjusts his hips and grinds down.  Rocking closer to John and keeping everything feeling good.  Good and warm and— “Fuck.”

John thrusts up into him and they’re moving as one, James cradling John to him and squeezing down.  “We’re going to be all right.”

“You can’t,” John gasps.  “You can’t fucking leave.”  John’s hands are back at his hips now.  Grabbing him, pulling him.  Jerking him closer and closer. They’re one being.  Never stopping.  An ouroboros, an infinity loop.  “You can’t fucking leave, or I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Is that what you’re going to do?” James asks him, biting at John’s neck.  He sucks on the dark skin right at the crook. Relishes the groan that John gasps out beside his ear.  “You can’t kill me.”  James challenges.  He pulls back.  Just enough to look John in the eye.  See his expression properly.  He wants to remember this sight.  “And I can’t kill you.  Or leave you.  Or be parted from you.”  He takes John by the chin and holds him firm.  Kissing him roughly and pressing him back down to the bed.  “It’d be like killing ourselves.  And you’re too fond of surviving for a thing like that.”

He slams down.  The burning thrill of pleasure spirals through his body in one glorious surge.  John comes within him.  Head thrown back.  Curls a mess amongst the bedding.  He cries out James’ name—a request, a plea?  A prayer for salvation?  James kisses him again and again.  He strokes John’s hair and he relishes how John looks.  Laying the way he’s lying.  

There are tears in his eyes, but it’s not anything sad.  Not anything grotesque.  When he looks at James, the fear’s gone.  The absolution’s there.  “Fuck me,” John whispers.  His throat gargling a little around phlegm.  

“It’s all right.” James  tells him.  He starts to pull away, but John’s fingers tighten.  

 _“I know_ it’s all right.  Fuck me, Captain.”

A part of him wants to say no.  Wants to tell John that this was enough.  John didn’t need to do more.  This isn’t a matter of quid pro quo.  But it’s not what John is looking for right now.  He _knows_ he doesn’t need to do more.  He knows.  James believes him.  

James slides off John’s cock and he depresses his fingers in the oil once more.  He brings his hand to John’s hole and traces it.   Feels how John’s come is starting to slide from his own body.  John’s eyes are on him.  Pupil’s so wide.  Skin flushed.  There’s a bruise forming where James had bit at John’s neck.  James presses his fingers in, and groans at the heat.  At the way John hisses and moans.  Back arching, toes curling.  

He’s loose and limber, muscles unclenched and relaxed under James now that he’s come.  He’s trembling now from pure desire alone, and James relishes the way John rocks into his touch.  Grabs at the arm James is using to stabilize himself.  Mouthing words that James can’t hear but can almost certainly make out.   _Please, please, please, James— “Now?”_ John gets out, and it’s enough.

More than enough.  He positions himself, keeping John on his back and watching as John took him in.  One inch at a time.  John’s eyelashes flutter.  His lips part.  “Tell me,” James asks.

“You know,” John tells him.  It’s not the answer James is expecting, but it strikes him to the core.   _You know._ The fire, the passion, the longing, the love, the pain, the comfort, the desire.  He does know. He knows, and John knows, and they are each other and in each other.  Their minds and bodies are one, and this is why John wanted this.  Asked for this.  

Unison.  Becoming each other.  James thrusts in and feels John gasp and twist and groan.  They kiss.  Tasting each other.  Tasting themselves.  “You can’t leave me either,” James whispers just seconds before the pleasure reaches its ultimate crescendo.  He was never going to last long like this.  Not after John had been inside him and there’s heat all around them.

“No,” John whispers.  He sounds so perfectly at peace.  “I can’t.”  James comes with a gasp.  Framing John’s body around his.  Thrusting through the last of it all.  Feeling as though a lifetime’s worth of events has led to this moment.

And the funny thing is, it has absolutely nothing to do with the sex.  Even as that finishes, a period at the end of the phrase, it’s not what James cares about.  He lays beside his John, and John lays beside him, and James knows that this is their now and always.  

He can't change the past or raise the dead, but he can have this.

 

***

 

Madi and Thomas find them after.  John is curled up to James’ chest.  A blanket over their shoulders.  James sits up the moment he hears the door open, blocking John entirely as if he could block him out from the world.  Keep him in the safe and gentle embrace of his bed until the end of time.   “O wild and brazen love, what is this you do?” Thomas teases almost instantly.

It takes James a moment to catch the quote, but John gets it immediately.  Groans as he turns about and sits upright.  Squinting through the dreary gloom of the night to look at Thomas and his wife behind him.  “Be reasonable, have patience,” he mutters in reply, and Thomas shakes his head.

Approaches the bed with his charming smile and his carefree swagger.  “Tell me, my John,” Thomas whispers.  He toes off his shoes and climbs onto the bed.  For a moment, James thinks John will shy away.  And he does in a sense.  But only a sense.  He leans against James’ body.  Lets him brace and support him.  There is no tension rippling along his flesh, no stiff muscles to show his discomfort.  “What lies do you intend to say?”

‘“Bear in mind how I have helped your eyes that both were blind.  On peril of my soul, I speak no lies; For I was taught, for healing of your eyes, there was no better thing to make you see, than…”’ He trails off.  Biting at his lip as though he cannot quite decide how he wants to finish the poem.  

“To see you lying there so happily?” Madi offers.  She sits with them as well, and John sighs.  Reaching for her so he can take her hand.  Be blessed with the benediction of her forgiveness of an act that she clearly saw and found no sin in.  She kisses his knuckles.  Strikes her fingers over each ridge.  “How are you, James?”

There’s no judgment.  No disapproval.  Madi asks because she cares.  Just as Thomas cares.  Just as John.  “I find myself in the unenviable position of needing to ask your forgiveness, again.”

“For giving my husband such joy?” Madi scoffs.  

“No.  For my behavior this morning.”

The young woman just shakes her head.  “We all have pains in life, James.  Demons that will haunt us, and strike us when we least expect it.  No one bears you ill will for this morning.  We merely wish for your peace.  Are you at peace now?”

With John here?  With Madi and Thomas closing in on either side?  With their family together and not a single one of them hurt in any way?

He kisses John’s crown and gestures for Madi to come closer.  “Yeah,” he says breathlessly, “I am.”


	24. The Squire's Tale

James wakes one morning to Madi curled up against his chest.  One arm tucked under her, the other thrown over his body.  Their legs are tangled, and her breasts are pressed to his core.  He kisses her hair.  Strokes her skin absently.  Tilting his head to the side, looking for Thomas and John.  

They’re both awake.  Likely the cause of James waking as well.  Thomas is lying half on top of John’s body.  Kissing his way down John’s skin towards his hips.  Whispering words that have John’s head tilting back.  Lips struggling to both smile and moan at once.  His fingers are caught around Thomas’ arms, but he’s not stopping him.  Just holding on as Thomas does as he will.  Misquoting Chaucer with pointed purpose.

 

 

> “At [Savannah] in the land of [Georgia],  
>  A king dwelt who made war on [England],                          
>  In which there perished many a valiant man.   
>  This noble king was known as [John],   
>  And in his time so greatly was renowned   
>  That in no other land was to be found   
>  So excellent a lord in everything;                             
>  He lacked for nothing that befits a king.   
>  And of the faith to which he had been born   
>  He kept the holy laws as he was sworn;   
>  And he was wise and rich, lived hardily,   
>  Was merciful and just impartially,                              
>  True to his word, honorable and kind,   
>  As steady-hearted as you'll ever find,   
>  Young, eager, strong, as set for battle's call   
>  As any young knight bachelor in his hall.   
>  And he was handsome, blest by Fortune's smile,                  
>  And always kept so royally in style   
> That nowhere else on earth lived such a man.”

 

Thomas noses at John’s cock.  Licks at the shaft before enveloping it.  John gasps quietly, like he’s trying to be polite.  His head twists to the side, and he looks at James.  Startled eyes meeting James’ and then shutting rapidly as he attempted to bite back a moan.  Thomas has a talented tongue, that’s never been in question.

He lavishes his attention on John’s body, and John releases Thomas with his right hand so he can hold it out for James to take.  Loathe to release Madi when she’s still sleeping so prettily, James makes sure his right hand remains firmly locked on her arm, and lets his left fall to meet John’s palm.  

He’s beautiful like this.  Trying so hard not to speak or wake his darling wife.  Trying to be good and proper while bucking into Thomas’ mouth when his body overrides his determination.  Their self-proclaimed opportunist has nothing on Thomas, who likely awakened with John sprawled out beneath him and _wanted_ what he saw.

James squeezes John’s palm tight as he watches John’s coiled muscles fight hard to not move.  Not wake Madi.  A lost cause if James ever knew one.  He can feel Madi starting to shift above him.  Can see her brown eyes blinking back Morpheus’ touch and glancing over her shoulder at her husband in the throes of passion with James’ soul.  

She frowns.  Rubbing at her eyes and clearly trying to wake up and decide if she wants any part of this.  She even looks at James as if to see if he’d encouraged Thomas’ debauchery.  He has nothing to say in Thomas’ defense.  But he does offer a wry smile to her, and is pleased when she sighs and crawls up to kiss his cheek good morning.  She then, promptly, rolls to his other side--as far away from John and Thomas as possible, and flops back into place.  “It’s quite rude,” she decides, and now that everyone’s awake and aware of it, Thomas grins around John’s cock and sucks hard.  Forcing him to gasp.  His eyes fluttering boldly.

“It is,” James agrees.  But from the way John’s grip has suddenly tightened on James’ hand, he knows their teasing must stop.  If John thinks this will damage something, he’ll start pulling away again.  Sabotaging himself since he has nothing else to break.  “Beautiful though,” James tells his young love.  He pulls John’s hand up and kisses the back of it.  

“Yes,” Madi sighs.  “He is.”  The tension fades and Thomas pulls off of John’s cock.  A trail of saliva still linking them together.  He licks his lips obscenely, and James can feel himself growing more interested by the second.  He’s always hard in the morning, but relieving himself rarely involves _coming._  The bedpan is his primary target on most days, but clearly Thomas hadn’t been interested in such things.

His fingers twitch, but he keeps hold of Madi at his side.  Not wishing to move her or involve her if she isn’t in the mood.  She’d hardly had much of a choice in the matter, and having just woken up he can understand if she wants nothing to do with Thomas’ shenanigans.

Still, Thomas is looking at _him_ now, like he should be his next prize, even if John’s hips are bucking with unfulfilled desire.  John’s blue eyes staring up at Thomas in confusion and lust that needs to be sated sooner rather than later.  James pities him.  He’s ensnared Thomas so thoroughly that Thomas has saw fit to cherish him in all his usual ways, and while some can be lovely and delightful.  Others are sinful and wretched.  Thomas grins, and James feels the pull towards his dear, dear, wretch.  There's a rope around his heart that ties him to Thomas Hamilton in all his glory.

The door downstairs is thrown open, and everyone freezes.  John’s rigid beneath Thomas, and his hand crushes James.  Footsteps approach and like idiots they sit in bed and _listen_ as they come.  When the knock sounds on the door, it still doesn’t spring them to action, they should be _moving,_ and James knows it.  But—

“—James?”  it’s Constance.  “There’s someone here for thee.”  The door is locked.  James always makes sure it’s locked when they’re all in here.  Makes sure that nothing can hurt his family or the ones he cares about.  They’re safe.  And it’s just Constance.  He gives John’s hand one final squeeze and then slides out from around Madi.  

“Who is it?” he asks, standing up and fetching his underdrawers and trousers.  He dresses as quickly as he can.  Listening as Constance clearly hesitates.

“It’s...a Jack Rackham.”

James turns around.  John’s moving Thomas off him and Madi’s sitting up.  John’s clothes are in arms reach, and he starts dressing.  Trembling fingers fumbling as hr tries to dress.  He’s not getting it right, and James recognizes the panic.  The devastation.  He’s not ready for this.  

“Where’s Hands?” James asks, pulling his hair back and getting a tie around it.  He’s dressed, but he can’t open the door without revealing everyone in their states of indecency.  Constance should already be aware of the circumstances of their relationship, but a part of him still shies at revealing their tender morning states to anyone else.  He tells himself it’s not shame, but propriety, and there’s a voice in his head that sounds like Miranda and it’s laughing at him.

Shockingly, it doesn’t hurt.

“He’s keeping him from entering the garden proper.”  Which could mean at the tip of a sword or merely by glaring at him, hammer in hand.  James grits his teeth and marches forward.  He throws the latch and hears Constance scuttle back a touch.  She’s got the good grace to be looking away as he opens the door and steps into the hall.

Margaret is in a bundle strapped to Constance’s back, frowning at her mother’s head unhappily.  As Constance leads James toward their unexpected guest, James can’t help but wonder what on earth Margaret has to be unhappy about.  Her life is blessed compared to so many others.  

“Stay inside,” James tells Constance as they reach the front door.  She nods and does as she’s told, stepping out of the way for him to go into the garden and come face to face with Jack for the first time in years.  

“Good God, you look utterly domesticated,” Jack says bluntly.  It’s as much of a greeting as James thinks he’ll ever get.   

Jack hasn’t changed.  He still has a beard cut like he had no idea what he was doing.  His hair is a wind swept mess.  His coat is fitted, but his shirt and trousers are loose and baggy.  A belt hugs it all together tightly around his waist.  Pistols and sword so clear to see.  James casts a cursory glance about looking for Max or Anne or anyone else really.  But it’s just Jack.  He seems rather strange alone.

“And you look utterly the same.  Have you really not changed your clothes in five years?” James holds out his hand and offers a smile, and Jack matches it.  His lips sliding crookedly up his face and his eyes squinting like he’s heard a particularly good joke.  It is a good joke, if James is being honest.  This whole ending of theirs is a solid joke indeed.

But they shake hands like old friends and Israel scowls because he hates visitors, and Jack (as far as James knew) had only ever been mildly tolerated by the man in the first place.  “I assume John’s here if his dog is?” Jack asks, and there’s the reason right there.  Israel growls at him like the mad thing he sometimes is, and James nods.  

“He’s inside.” Outside by now.  The door opens and John’s there, crutch tucked up under his arm.  He’s dressed properly, as opposed to James.  He’s even got a gun and sword.  

Jack isn’t bothered in the least.  “It’s like you people don’t trust me,” he sighs.  He follows James to the porch and John’s face is caught somewhere between past and present.  Anxiety bleeding through him, though he tries to hide it away.  

 _We’ve done something horrible to this man,_ James thinks.   _We’ve kept him from living his life._  John’s natural talent is to push the meaning of his past behind him.  To turn his yesterdays into meaningless moments that don’t define him.  He’s slid out from the shadow of Long John Silver.  He’s turned into this new thing, this young and fragile man who just wants some peace and quiet in his life. Some stability.

He runs from Long John Silver as much as he runs from whatever it is he never tells James.  And James knows so very well that it’s easy to break a man when they’re like this.  In the unformed clay state of life.  Not yet molded into the person they’re meant to be.  An infant still learning how to speak, but one who knows full well not to put their hand in the fire.  For even as the flame burns and scars, they know never to do it again.

“What are you doing here, Jack?” John asks.  The voice is wrong, the posture too.  He’s losing his own attempts at forming himself.  James puts a hand on his shoulder.  

“Let’s go inside.”  So they go.  They walk into their little room with the kitchen on one end and their books and furniture on the other.  James starts a fire, and Jack looks at their books.  He props one hand on his hip.  Stands there like this is Eleanor Guthrie’s salon, or his own cabin.  Margaret starts crying upstairs.

No one’s sitting.  John’s still standing by the bench like he’s not sure if he wants to shoot Jack or himself.  Israel guards the door silently.  Arms crossed and face scowling.  James almost wants to start talking first, just to get it done with.  But Jack always did have a loose tongue.  Wagging it before he knew what was good for him.  “Yours?” Jack asks, looking at John with something close approaching true care.  He’d be happy for John if the child were his.  He’d congratulate him.  

But John cuts his head to the left in a sharp shake.  “Not yet.”   _Yet._  James’ stomach twists.  He knows just as well as everyone else in this family that that _yet_ is an undetermined thing.  He’s seen John fuck his wife.  Seen him kiss her and suckle at her breasts and press his cock inside her.  Gasping and whispering words of love.  Coming within her body and lying above her with such tender affection.  Not _yet._ But soon.  

James is certain.

They’ll need to deal with it soon.

Jack dares to look toward James.  “It’s his,” James offers.  He juts his chin at Israel who makes no effort to hide how his hand is still resting on his sword.  If anything, Jack swallows nervously.  

“Right.  Right.  Of course.”  He doesn’t say how strange it is to contemplate that Israel found a woman willing.  He doesn’t dare to suggest that the woman _hadn’t_ been willing.  Even now, Jack has the capacity to be wise.

“Why are you here Jack?” John asks again.  He won’t ask a third time.  If there’s one thing that James has grown accustomed to, it’s how seriously Israel takes his duties.  He won’t allow John to be disrespected.  He won’t let his questions go unanswered.  He will be the darkness John can no longer be.  It’s almost nice.  Knowing that Israel is there to reach into the filth so they don’t have to.

Margaret keeps crying, and James can hear Constance trying to hush her.  It’s nice knowing that Israel has his tether to pull him back to the light too.  Even if James does still hate the man.

“Billy Bones.”  John flinches.  Honest to God _flinches._  He steadies himself on the back of a bench.  His eyes flick towards James.  They don’t talk about the details of the Island.  Not much...not at all since Madi had left.  John’s added it to the list of things never to be discussed.  Come to think of it, he’s distracted then with all the other things that James imagines he would have wanted to discuss even less.

How many filthy stories had James heard about John’s fabled past?  How many fake families or jobs or friends?  Something twists in James’ gut.  Irritated at the mere thought that John can so easily play him against himself.  Keep him from asking questions about things that actually matter.  Keep him from finding answers when he’s so willing to help.

 _What does it matter?_ John and Miranda both asked James once.  

 _Nothing,_ James supposes in return.  He’s still been John’s confidante.  His family.  His lover.  He’s still been his partner and protector and friend.  And if John hadn’t wanted to talk about it, and had moved through life without the shadow of Billy curling through his mind...it meant things were good—yes?

“He’s dead,” John’s voice cracks.  “With Ben...I thought he and Ben fell off a cliff…”

“Yes well, for Ben Gunn apparently that might still be true.  But Billy’s much like a roach of sorts.  Seems impossible to kill no matter how many times you drown it.”

John sits.  It’s an ungraceful thing.  His discomfort and his displeasure are clear.  He curls forward in his seat and his crutch leans awkwardly against his body.  Margaret’s stopped crying but James can still hear people moving about.  Thomas will be getting worried by now; Madi is likely eavesdropping.

Tact is actually one of Jack’s better qualities.  He looks at John, looks back at James, looks over at Israel and he presses his lips together.  “You’re not going after him,” he deduces brilliantly.  James can’t quite tell if he’s disappointed or relieved by the prospect.  Jack just states it as fact.  Peering at John curiously.  Like he’s performed an interesting trick and Jack can’t decide how to react.

“We probably _should,”_ James replies slowly.  John’s knuckles tighten.  His back goes rigid where it sits folded over.  A happy baby gurgle replaces the last vestiges of tears from upstairs.  “But no.” He doesn’t want to leave this place.  Not for Billy Bones.  Not for that damned treasure.  Not for anything in the world.  He wants to stay here with this family, and he wants to watch the person that John will become.  He wants to fight through the pain and torment of the past.  He wants to...live.  

He wants to protect Margaret.  Wants to overcome this pain he has whenever he thinks about a child of his own.  Wants to watch John and Madi grow old.  Wants to forgive himself and absolve himself of his sins.  

John never told Billy where they were.  Jack likely only found them because he was aware of their circumstances to begin with.  Billy can’t find them here.  Not unless someone talks.  Jack won’t tell Billy, and neither will anyone else.  If they do, they’ll have to go from there.

But...if there’s no reason for Billy to find them.  “How would you like your treasure back?” James asks.  John’s head snaps up.  He blinks at James.  Slowly.  Reptilian.  He squints ever so slightly.  But the answer is so obvious to James.  The way to rid themselves of Billy Bones forever.

Billy wants that Godforsaken treasure?  Well if it’s no longer on Skeleton island then there’s no reason to come after _them_ for it.  There’s a paper and ink nearby; James fetches them both.  He’s not going to live in a world where John’s anxious about Billy Bones coming for him or his family again.  He’s not going to sit here and watch as John twists himself into pieces about this fucking treasure.  

James draws the island from memory.  He writes contours and markers.  He describes the exact place he’d put the chest into the ground, just as he’d done with the map he’d given Ben.  He finishes it in moments.  The picture still so fresh and clear in his head.  Walking across the room, he hands it to Jack.  “It’s yours.”  Jack just stares at it.  His fingers curl about the paper.

“You’re just... _giving_ it to me?” Jack clarifies.  He’s waiting for the punchline.  Waiting for the request.  Waiting for something James has no intention of giving him.

James is _tired_ of fighting this fight.  He’s tired of seeing John not able to move on.  He’s tired of not being able to move on himself.  They have a life here.  A family.  He wants to live that life and lay Captain Flint to rest.  Their time in the Caribbean has passed.  “Use it well,” James tells him firmly.  “And make sure Billy knows you have it.”

“So you want _me_ to deal with him.”  Jack scowls in disgust.  He rolls the paper up swiftly, though.  Tucking it into his coat pocket as if he thought James would take it back.  “You want _me_ to clean up your mess?”

James just smiles.  What else is there for him to do?

In a way it’s Jack who’s given them a gift.  He’s given them the ability to see this threat coming.  They can react first, rather than after.  They aren’t caught by surprise.  James knows John’s mind, and he knows Billy’s.  He can see into their thoughts and he can peer into their motives.  John’s so desperate to escape the tethers of his past, and Billy is incapable of letting go.

Removing themselves from the narrative is the only way forward.  This is no longer their story, and there’s relief in that.  There’s comfort.  James can finally simply be himself.  James McGraw.  Shaped and burdened by the mark of Captain Flint.  Different, of course, than who he was before.  But he can embrace this future without the stain of the past.  Without a black spot dogging his heels.

This opportunity is the gift that they needed.  The balm that had eluded them.  The final nail in the coffin before burying the dead where it belongs.  The fought wars around that bloody gold.  They fought battles and raised legions.  John lost his leg.  John found his wife.  John found Thomas.  James lost Miranda.  James met Madi.  James reunited with Thomas.  The chest wounded and healed them in turns, and now this final gift it gives.  Freedom.

It gives them freedom.  

Jack can take this and he can give them peace, and their happiness will only be theirs.  No Billy Bones hunting them from the depths.  No pain or malice terrorizing them in the night.  Just this.  Just freedom.  It’s what they’ve been fight for all this time.  A chance to be free.

James looks at John.  His boy.  Broken and shattered and trying so hard to become someone better.  Someone new.  He can’t do that if he’s terrified of a monster in the dark.  So James will illuminate it.  Cast the darkness aside, and make it so the road is open and clear.  They can go anywhere they desire.  The future can teleport them anywhere it likes, and they will be free.

Free to sing with the birds in the morning and embrace the joys of the evening.  Free to wrap themselves into the arms of Thomas and Madi and live long lives of domestic drudgery.  So John never has to step foot on a ship again.  So James never has to become a Captain.  So Madi can be cherished.  So Thomas can be loved.

Jack’s presence has provided for the greatest gifts James could ever ask for.  He turns back to the man.  Smiles crookedly.  “Yeah,” he says.  It’s the last mess Captain Flint will ever make.  His last act on earth before he is put to rest for good.  Jack need only to pursue the gold, “One last time.”

 

***

 

Jack stays for dinner.

He’s utterly charmed by Thomas and Constance.  He hugs Madi and wishes her well.  Calls her radiant and glowing.  “Continent life suits you,” he offers with a glance in John’s direction and brows raised.  James doesn’t care to decipher it.  He just sits with one arm around the back of Thomas’ chair.  Listening as they all chatter.  Jack tells them stories of the past.  

Each word is a caricature of events that James feels removed from.  These are spliced lines and artful tales.  They belong in books that go on shelves of children.  For them to pull out and read about heroes of old.  Legends.   _Princes of the New World._ He can imagine Jack penning down these memoirs into a legend that they all take part in.

Charles Vane immortalized for his bravery and his strength in battle.  Anne Bonny and her dual swords.  Her dancing daggers.  Her unbreakable spirit.  In a way, it’s fitting that the end comes in the form of Jack Rackham.  That they can sit here like this.  James feels it in his heart.  So different from when he last saw Jack.  He can _feel_ how things have changed.

Jack’s world is no longer his.  No longer theirs.  James is ready to give up the sea.

He kisses Thomas’ head.  Steps outside into the night air.  The day had been filled with errands running to the Inn.  Getting it ready, while Jack remained entertained.  Soon, James hopes they’ll be able to have a normal schedule.  Waking up and running their business properly.  No more interruptions.  No more catastrophes they need to deal with.  Just peace and quiet and normalcy.

“I came here to tell you about Billy as a warning,” Jack tells him.  He’s always been a silent walker.  He approaches now like a man who just needs to step from the shadows to appear.  Perhaps he’s the teleporter after all.  James cracks a smile at the errant thought.  Jack responds with mild curiosity that he never voices.  “I half expected I’d have to argue with you to keep you here.”

“You heard then?” James asks.  “About what he did to John?”

“I heard.”  News travels fast in their circles.  Pirates always were terrible gossips.  “How’s he been?” Jack actually sounds concerned.  He leans against the rail of the porch.  Arms crossed.  Back curled forward as usual.  He keeps his voice low, but James hears him just fine.  Just as he can hear the laughter from inside as Thomas starts telling stories of his own.

Another time, another place, James might have snapped at Jack.   _What do you care?_ But that isn’t him anymore.  Jack isn’t prying for any selfish reason.  He can see for himself how John’s been.  He’s prying because he wants to know.  Because he cares.  

“I doubt we’ll ever know the full extent of what horrors he lived through on that island.  John has a particular knack for obfuscating anything that would show pain or weakness on his part.  He prefers to ignore tragedy or trauma exist.  But he’s doing as well as he can.  As well as anyone can.”

Jack hums quietly.  He has a mug in his hands.  Rum likely inside.  He sips at it absently.  Swallowing leisurely.  “You know, sometimes it’s easy to forget how much happened that year.”  James tilts his head at Jack’s voice.  Not replying exactly, but willing to listen.  “Every day seemed to fall into the next and there were so many chaotic events one right after the other, it feels as though it took place over a series of years.  But it was less than one.  And here we are now.  Still picking up the pieces of that storm.”

“You weathered it all right,” James offers.  Jack salutes him with his mug and drinks it down.

“And here you sit.  Your Pirate King and Queen, your partner.  You even have a dog and his litter of puppies—”

“—One child does not a litter of puppies make—”

“—are you content with this?” It’s a peculiar question to ask.  One that James pauses to consider.  Jack’s reasons for keeping him off the seas are purely self motivated, but James wonders if it’s deeper than that.

If this whole story doesn’t run deeper than that.  If from the beginning of time they hadn’t been building to a conclusion that meant something more than everyone’s individual selfish motivations or reasons.  Jack and John sent him off to be in a gilded cage, to be kept out of sight and mind from the rest of the world.  Jack arranged it so that the Guthries could continue their reign over Nassau, and all James had to do was never again lift up his sword and proclaim himself as Captain Flint.

He’d come out of retirement to challenge Billy Bones, and it makes sense Jack would come by to confirm he had no intentions to do so again.  And the truth of the matter is, though Savannah may well be a gilded cage in its own right—it’s also his mew.  Filled with dangerous birds of prey who call this place home.

They paint the walls with colors of good things, and they paint the siding with memories of the past.  Pains and deceptions and histories all.  This is their home.  And he won’t lose it for anything.  “Yeah,” James tells Jack.  “I had peace once...or what I thought was peace.  And now there’s this...so where I left off I shall now begin again.”  

“Good.” Jack nods his head.  Holds his hand out for James to take it.  They shake once, but hold on for a brief moment longer.  Past, present, and future saying hello and wishing goodbye.  “I hope I never see you again,” Jack tells him.  James laughs.

There are countless stories the future may hold, but James knows full well: Captain Flint has no part in any of them.


	25. Sire Thopas' Tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Minor Character Deaths

There are things you do for someone when you swear your life to serve them.

Things you do that you don’t do for anyone else.  

Israel’s murdered men.  Murdered women.  He’s slid his blade through the chests of young lads and lasses.  Watched the life leave their frightened eyes.  He lit a boy on fire once, right in front of the child’s parents.  Just so his parents would understand the message Israel wanted to give them. Israel never said he wasn’t a monster.

Flint and Long John Silver were personas that James and John adopted to give them the ability to fight their wars.  But the reality is, Israel is exactly the monster they pretended to be.  And he never sought to change it.  He doesn’t seek the redemption that James strives for.  Doesn’t hollow out his heart in hopes of becoming a more tender person, like John.

He doesn’t apologize for his sins.  He did the things he did, and he doesn’t _care_ that he did them.  If John told him to arm himself and go back to war, he would do it.  He’d relish the chance to dig his fingers into the blood and gore again.  To terrorize the public as they are forced into seeing the vicious creature within.  

But John’s opinions on returning to sea are reluctant at best.  Completely against it at worst.  Israel has seen John becoming the man he is now.  He’s seen that shit fucker and _James_ and the world they had built.  They want to pretend that they could live their lives in happiness.  Away from the ocean and away from chaos.

That their sins didn’t matter.  That what they did, didn’t affect anyone anymore.  They can retire inland, and find peace.

Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny are hung by the neck until they were dead just before the new year in 1720.  The news comes up to Savannah and is the talk of the town.  Israel stops it there.  He catches Thomas’ arm as he leaves his shop and throws him against a wall.  He nearly gets a dagger in his gut because of it.  “What the _hell_ do you think you’re doing?” Thomas growls at him. One of these days this little shit is going to kill him, and it will be entirely John’s fault.

“Jack Rackham and his bosom lass are dead.”  Thomas stares at Israel.  Uncomprehending.   _For fucks sake,_ “For someone so smart you have no  fucking idea sometimes.” Israel slams the door shut behind him.  He stalks closer, but Thomas lifts the dagger higher.  As if he’d actually hurt Israel when _Maggie_ is back home.

Thomas loves that sprog more than he does, and if that’s one thing that Israel knows he can use to his advantage, it’s that.  “You want your precious boy to stay here and be a peaceful fucking innkeeper—you’d best not let him know about Jack then.”

There are things one does when they’re under oath to serve a man.  Depths that they must fall to.  Places they must go.  Thomas stares at Israel.  “The map?” he asks quietly.   

“Gone.  Wasn’t on him a Jonathan Barnet handed him over to the Governor in Port Royal.”

Thomas actually looks pale.  He lowers the dagger.  “They killed him for it?”

“The fuck else do you think they killed him for?” He had the protection of Nassau and the Guthries.  Someone went above and beyond that.  Someone targeted him in place of that.  “Silver finds out about Jack, then your days are playing house are done.”

“I can’t _lie_ to him,” Thomas argues.

“Just don’t let him know,” Israel bargains.  Thomas’ mouth stutters.  He looks so terribly conflicted.  “It will kill them,” Israel tells Thomas firmly, and that’s all he needs.

Thomas nods, and agrees to keep their secret.

 

***

 

It takes work.  It takes distraction.  They need to keep John from the main part of the tavern for weeks.  They need to frame narratives around stories.  But there are things you do for people you love.

John gets his wife pregnant and they welcome a child into the world, and Israel watches over them as James holds their precious son.  As John rests his brow against James’ and knows when the touch is too much.  When baby Geoffrey needs to go someplace else and James needs to be talked down from whatever point of hysteria only a man like him could work himself up to.

“Children die,” Israel informs James bluntly when he catches the man loitering over Geoffrey’s crib.  “They die easily.  I could kill him in an instant if I wanted to.” He expects the violence.  The way James steps so firmly into place in front of the child.  The way he prepares to defend it with his life.  “But if there was anyone on this earth I’d trust to save my girl, to keep her safe if I couldn’t, it’d be you.”

James stares at him.  

“What?” Israel growls.  “You think I’d trust that shit fucker or Silver to keep her safe?  No.  I know you.  You’d do everything in your power to keep these kids safe.  If there’s a mortal way to do it - you’d do it.  You’re fucking impossible to beat.”

“What are you saying?” James asks him.

“Hold your fucking godson, and move on.  Your daughter’s dead.  He isn’t.”

Israel doesn’t care to wait and see what James does.  Doesn’t give a fuck, really.  The next day he watches Maggie crawl over to see the baby and touch his pudgy cheeks.  Geoffrey starts crying immediately, because he’s just as much a lightweight as his father.  But James crouches down.  “Not like that, Margaret,” he murmurs softly.  He carefully lifts the infant.  Cradles the back of his head.  Holds him close to his body and sits so Maggie can see Geoffrey properly.  

No one says a word.

But they watch.

They wait.

They love.

Israel does his rounds.  The whole lot of them are hopeless.

 

***

The grounds are quiet.

They always are.  In all the time Israel’s been here, the grounds have never not been quiet.  They’ve done the impossible in Savannah.  They’ve retired and lived in peace.  Years slip by, and Israel walks the grounds, and he does what he does because he swore he’d protect John Silver’s family until the day he died.  So he protects them.  He plays house with Constance and Maggie.  He watches over this strange little mew they’ve put together, and he does his fucking job. He pretends that this is not redemption.

He does a quick circuit each night, and sometimes Maggie comes with him.  She’s with him now.  He caught her toddling after him not long ago.  Spied her as she hid behind doors and crouched under tables.  She’s not nearly as stealthy as she thinks.  He needs to teach her better.  If she’s going to grow up tough as nails, he’s going to have to teach her how to hit as hard as a hammer.  He picks her up and holds her against his hip as he stalked the property.  Peering out into the gloom and making sure everything’s in order.  

He loops around the house twice, checking the windows and the surrounding area closely.  Everything is all buttoned up and seems just as quiet as it always is.

The fire had started dying down in the house, so Israel gathers some wood and breathes life back into it.  Lets the light fill up the room.  Maggie helps.  She reaches for sticks and babbles as she puts it on the fire.  “Not too close, runt,” Israel warns her.  She frowns very seriously and nods her head as she puts more sticks in.  

They keep at it until it’s roaring.  Nice thick logs in place to keep it burning through the night.  He’d done up the fire in his and Constance’s part of the property before he left.  Made sure she was good and warm.  

He nudges Maggie back before going to quietly stalk the upper hall.  Make sure there’s nothing amiss there.  He can’t hear anything strange and the house feels calm.  Geoffrey’s sleeping soundly and Maggie smiles up at him.  Presses one finger to her lips to show she’s capable of being quiet.  Her little face always so happy and pleased.

Children never liked him before, and he never liked them.  Never liked how they sounded, how they acted.  Half the time he hates listening to her babble or cry.  But there are moments when he’s reminded that she’s not all bad.  Moments where she looks at him and he’s startled to find that she’s not afraid.

She calls him _papa_ and she runs to him on tiny legs.  She stands like him.  She’s started to carry about a hammer.  She needed a scolding once for hitting James with it.  Whacking him on the leg when he’d argued with Israel about the rutabagas.  Constance had told him it wasn’t appropriate to congratulate her on her technique and that their daughter shouldn’t be encouraged.

John had privately told him to encourage Maggie all he wanted.  Grinning the whole while.

There are things that Israel never thought he’d see.  Moments he never thought he’d get a chance to live through.  John Silver...Israel never thought he’d see this man grow.  Never thought he’d see him holding Israel’s daughter in his arms.  Rocking her when she cries.  Kissing her face and wiggling his nose against hers.  Listening as they both laugh together.  

Abandoning children had come as easily to Israel as fucking their mothers and calling them whores.  Breaking alliances with sailors had been harder than that, but he learned his lessons well.  There had never been loyalty in life, and there never would be loyalty in life.  Except for the loyalty he had to himself.  His interests and desires.

He should have sold John for a ransom years ago.  Should have collected his coin and let the boy hang.  But he hadn’t.  And John had repaid that favor by holding out his hand and welcoming him into his home.  

Israel’s never done anything to earn forgiveness for his sins.  Never went to confession, never tried to atone.  He’d done the things he’d done, fucking and whoring and murdering, and he’d never once been ashamed of any of it.  Maggie hugs him as tight as she can.  Sighing against his shoulder and babbling a little.  If he’d killed John back then, he wouldn’t have Constance now.  Wouldn’t have Maggie here.  Wouldn’t have this place.  Geoffrey wouldn’t exist.  He's still not sure it's worth it.

“Papa,” Maggie whispers loudly.  She hasn’t quite figured out how to do it quietly yet.  “Book, papa, book?”

John leaves that blasted book everywhere.  He seems incapable of remembering to put it somewhere not in view.  And Maggie loves it.  Grabs at it and drags it about.  Hands it to anyone who will humor her.

So he humors her.  He sits on that fucking bench and he adjusts Maggie on his lap.  Leans toward the fire and opens it to a random page.  Flips a few of them over until he gets to the start of a tale. “Listeth, lordes, in good entent…” he clears his throat and cracks his neck.  Adjusts Maggie a bit so he can get a finger under the words.  He’s not a particularly fast reader.  Still hasn’t gotten a flow for it.  But Constance never let up in her tutelage.

And in the two years since Maggie’s birth, he’s gotten better at sounding out the words and divining their meaning.  Everyone in this damn household reads more than is proper.  They have books upon books in all corners of their lives.  But Maggie begs him to read to her instead of all the others, and so here he is.  Reading.  His parents would be disgusted.

“And I wol telle verrayment,” he presses on valiantly.  “Of myrthe and of solas; Al of a knyght was fair and gent; In bataille and in tourneyment; His name was Sire Thopas.”  Maggie snuggles her wee head against Israel’s chest.  She sighs in contentment.  

He never thought a child would sigh in contentment when held in his arms.  But he’s held Maggie.  Held Geoffrey.  He’s looked into John’s eyes as he passed the boy into his care.  There’s a demand there.  An unspoken promise.  He knows his oath.  He knows full well it carries to this boy.  He’s held the child and known that there’s nothing more that he can do than this.

 

 

> Yborn he was in fer contree
> 
> In Flaundres, al biyonde the see
> 
> At Poperyng in the place;
> 
> His fader was a man ful free,
> 
> And lord he was of that contree,
> 
> As it was Goddes grace.
> 
>  
> 
> Sir Thopas wax a doghty swayn,
> 
> Whit was his face as payndemayn,
> 
> Hise lippes rede as rose;
> 
> His rode is lyk scarlet in grayn,
> 
> And I yow telle, in good certayn,
> 
> He hadde a semely nose.
> 
>  
> 
> His heer, his berd, was lyk saffroun,
> 
> That to his girdel raughte adoun;
> 
> Hise shoon of Cordewane.
> 
> Of Brugges were his hosen broun,
> 
> His robe was syklatoun
> 
> That coste many a jane.

 

Something shifts in the hall, and Israel snaps the book closed.  Wraps an arm around Maggie and getting ready to move her.  But his daughter’s asleep.  And Thomas is the one approaching.  Stepping into the light with a robe wrapped around his body.  “You’re a fucking creeper, you are,” Israel growls.

“Thopas means _topaz_ you know.  Like the stone.”

“Didn’t ask,” Israel tells him.  He looks at Maggie, but she’s apparently fallen asleep against him.  How very convenient.

“It was a common stone then.  Still is now.  Not really worth much in terms of value.  Much like...silver in that way.” Something cold worms about Israel’s chest.  He’s reminded, suddenly, that he fucking _hates_ Thomas McGraw.  The man’s far too clever for his own good.  Far too smart by half.

“I’ve often wondered why he chose that name.  Why you chose to stay by him.  Why you’ve made all these choices and he all his.” Thomas slinks closer.  Israel stands.  He shifts Maggie against his chest.  “Does he know?” Thomas asks.  

“Know _what?”_ Israel growls back.  They stand there.  Breathing each other’s air.  So very close.  Israel wishes he could kill him.  Wishes he could be done with this.  Wishes he could walk away.  But he can’t.  He’s not allowed.  He won’t allow himself.

“When did you know I wonder?  Before you prepared to hand him over for a ransom, probably.  But how did you know...how did he?”

Israel says, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

And Thomas doesn’t listen.  He walks even closer.  His blue eyes glint like a demon in the night.  “He tells all these stories.  His father abandoned him.  His father beat him.  His father sold him.  His father’s a good man.  His father’s a bad man.”

“What’s your point?”

“What kind of man do you think John Silver’s father is?”  Israel sneers.  He steps to the side, and Thomas steps in front of him.  “Did he leave him?” he asks.  He’s being hypothetical, but there’s no question of lying.  No question of pretending.  “Did he hurt him?  Of course he hurt him, but...he doesn’t know does he?”

“He knows,” Israel grunts out.  They don’t talk about it.  They don’t talk about the reasons Israel’s here.  The reasons John’s let him stay.  The reasons that Israel holds his oath so secure.  They don’t talk about anything except the present.  

Because they don’t need the past.  They don’t need the pains and horrors or the crimes.  The redemption arc that Israel Hands receives isn’t one that will ever be completed.  His is one that will burn on forever.  There is no forgiveness for the things that exist in the past between him and John.  This present is all they have.  All they will ever have.  For the future isn’t set.  Not for them.

Thomas’ jaw clenches.  He’s furious and hateful.  He’s angry.  He’d have throw Israel out now if he could.  But unless he follows through with all his threats of killing Israel, he won’t manage it.  He’ll never manage it.  “If you hurt Maggie, if you hurt Geff, if you threaten to harm them or John or Constance, or _anyone_ in this house—he won’t stop me.”

The threat’s interesting.  It’s worth considering.  It’s worth thinking about.   _Would_ John stop Thomas?  Would he interfere? “You’re not his father,” Israel says.  He doesn’t know why he says it.  Doesn’t know what he’s trying to prove.  Doesn’t know if it even matters.  

 _“Neither are you,”_ Thomas tells him firmly.  There’s nothing that Israel cares to say to that.  He glowers and grinds his teeth.  Hating Thomas even as he tries to pretend he’s not escaping.  “That book,” Thomas says suddenly.  Cutting off his retreat.  He doesn’t turn back though.  Doesn’t turn to see the look on Thomas’ face.  He can hear, though.

He can hear how Thomas picks up the book.  Can hear how he flips through the pages.  Closes it.  “Do you know why John loves it?”

“Because he’s a fucking pu—”

“—Shockingly no,” Thomas snaps, before Israel even has a chance to finish.  Israel hadn’t meant it.  Hadn’t ever really meant it.  But he doesn’t care to talk to _Thomas_ about that fucking book.  “It’s life.  Life collected within the pages.  The good, the bad, the sinners, the saints.  It’s good families, and broken families, and tales where the stories are never quite what they seem.  Countless perspectives and points of view.  Children's fables and rhymes.  It’s growing up, and it’s growing old.  And John loves them because he lives through them all.  He becomes them all.  And he feels.”

 _That’s John’s problem,_ Israel thinks.   _John always feels._

“In that one, Sire Thopas, your knight of ordinary means, gets interrupted.  He never finishes his stories, because the rhymes aren’t good enough.  The speech too plain.  The stories not clever enough.”

“Do you have a point with that?” Israel growls out.  Maggie snuggles closer to his chest.  He adjusts his hold.  

“The rest of the stories go on, and nobody remembers Sire Thopas.  Nobody remembers what he did, or what he said.  How his silly little nonsense rhymes go.  Nobody cares about the him, because everything else is so much more interesting.  One of these days, Israel, you’re going to die.  Your life will be interrupted before you reached a conclusion that you wanted.  And the rest of us, we’ll live on without you.  John will live without you.  His story goes on without you.  Her story exists without you.  And nobody will ever remember that they had a Sire Thopas in their lives.  Not when all the other tales are so much more exciting.”

Israel doesn’t care to listen anymore.

He walks outside.  Gets back to his and Constance’s home.  Puts Maggie back in her bed and returns to his own.  Lies down next to his Quaker wife, and stares at the ceiling.  Listening for monsters in the dark.  Listening for something more to fill in the spaces.

Constance turns over.  “All’s well?” she asks quietly.  

“Fine,” he grunts out.  “You’ve got family in England, don’t you?” Pennsylvania’s too close.  It’s not far enough away.  He feels something tingling deep within him. The need to move.  To get away.  To put as much distance between him and Thomas McGraw and James Flint and this fake sense of comfort they’ve built here.  This place is just a den of lies, and he won’t tolerate it anymore.

“Mm...in Bristol.”

Bristol.  They could go there.  Visit them.  Wouldn’t take much to convince John to go.  Israel’s kept track of Billy Bones over the years.  Kept one ear to the ground, just in case news of Jack Rackham were to catch them off guard.  But John’s never looked for information about Jack.  Hasn’t tried to get an update from the Bahamas.  Doesn’t care about anything related to the sea.

Thomas thinks that’s in their favor, but it’s not.

_Billy Bones killed Jack Rackham for the map, and rumors say he hasn’t used it yet.  That he’s hiding out somewhere in England because no one will sail with him.  No one at all._

Years ago, it hadn’t been the right time.  It hadn’t been the right moment.  Hadn’t felt right.  Years ago, John had wanted peace and quiet, and Israel thought giving it to him would be the right thing to do.  Years ago, Israel hadn’t hated Thomas more than he loved John.

And there are things you do when you make an oath to someone.

And sometimes, that oath makes you make choices that you never thought you’d do.

In the morning, he’ll tell John about Jack.  He’ll feed John's anger and his pain.  He’ll pull the guilt and the shadows of darkness and the tortured soul that he helped foster all these years.  He’ll wind John up like a clock out of sync, and listen to him chime.  Listen to him make the plans.

Thomas can’t take what isn’t his.

And Israel’s fostered this relationship from the start. They're going to Bristol, and leaving everything else behind.

 

 

> Blameth me nat; for as in my sentence
> 
> Shul ye nat fynden moche difference
> 
> Fro the sentence of this tretys lyte
> 
> After the which this murye tale I write.
> 
> And therefore herkneth what that I shal seye,
> 
> And lat me tellen al my tale, I praye.
> 
>  

_End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this transitional fic. Hopefully everything transfers quite nicely into Treasure Island from here. I'm so happy you took this journey with me, and I hope you enjoyed this tale!

**Author's Note:**

> You can read the Canterbury Tales here: http://www.librarius.com/cantales.htm  
> And the complete modern translation is here: http://english.fsu.edu/canterbury/
> 
> I will use both the Librarius and the FSU versions throughout this story! 
> 
> If you have any suggestions feel free to let me know!
> 
> http://www.falcon-fox-and-coyote.tumblr.com


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